Archive for the 'Garden and Nature' Category

The Whetstone Prairie

Published
by
Garnet David
on July 14, 2007
in Garden and Nature and Places
. 2 Comments

wildflower I have developed a nice habit of taking daily walks through the park near my house. It started last Summer, when I realized how valuable walking is as a relaxing meditation. I used to jog fairly often through this park, but my attention was on “getting somewhere” rather than enjoying the scenery and my thoughts.

Whetstone Park in Columbus, OH is a large, city park established in the 1930’s. A well maintained bike path runs through the park. This path connects with other river parks and runs almost continuously through about 20 or more miles through the city. I’ve biked the 7 miles from my house to downtown hardly using any streets.

The North side of the park holds the glorious and nationally famous Whetstone Park of Roses, which features thousands of roses in bloom all Summer, and which boasts the newest, cutting edge hybrids the year before they are publicly released!

bike path along Olentangy River Just a few blocks from my house an entrance to the park leads to the path along the Olentangy River. (Locals like to jokingly call it the Old and Grungy River, because it’s not very clean or pretty.) The photo shows the are I pass through soon after leaving my house.

Vernal Pool, dry in Summer About 5 years ago, a large field which had been used for soccer and dog running was converted into a prairie. The middle of the field was often soggy after a rain. The park is large and has numerous other, better fields for soccer and field games, so this seemed like a good spot for a prairie. The wet spots are now “vernal pools”, which hold water during the rainy seasons and are necessary breeding ground for frogs and other amphibians. Dragonflies and Damselflies also hunt there. At sunset, the dragonflies can be seen flying high the pool, intermingling with the evening Swallows and perhaps getting eaten.

Dame’s Rocket by Woods The Whetstone Prairie is a joint effort between the Columbus Parks and Recreation Dept. and Columbus Wild Ones: Native Plants, Natural Landscapes, a local non-profit branch of a national organization, Wild-Ones. Hundreds of volunteers help prepare and maintain the field.

At first the field was let to grow somewhat wild. The grasses went to seed and grew several feet tall. I’m guessing this was to shade out some of the smaller weeds. Designated paths were kept mowed to be passable on foot.

A few months later, I noticed that a few acres of the 6 in the field had been sprayed with herbicide. I wasn’t sure if this was particularly kosher for developing a natural habitat, but I could also understand, considering how weed infested the ground is.

main entrance to the Whetstone Prairie After the cleared area settled a bit, perhaps a month later, I noticed a few dozen small plants had been placed near what was to be the main entrance for the prairie. These were demonstration plants for visitors to learn names and shapes. It’s nice to be able to get close to each of several varieties, especially for photos. The wild field is difficult to walk though. Nor would I want to disturb nesting creatures.

The rest of the cleared field was seeded with dozens of varieties of prairie flowers: Cup Plants, Bee Balm, Black Eyed Susans, Queen Ann’s Lace, Cone Flowers, Cardinal Flowers, Butterfly Weeds, Gay Feathers, Asters and various other sun flowers. Over the next year these plants matured into a dense, thicketed and healthy prairie.

Struggling parts of Whetstone Prairie The remaining 4-5 acres were never sprayed, but were seeded with millions of wildflower seeds. However, those areas have struggled with nasty weed infestations such as dandelion, plantain and crabgrass.

I have watched the purveyors of the prairie try several methods to favor the natural prairie flowers. This year they mowed those parts down and raked up the dried stems, perhaps allowing light and air to reach the somewhat established prairie flowers. So far it still looks pretty weedy. I’m not sure what they plan for this area. Perhaps it will take times for the prairie flowers to dominate, which are ultimately quite durable once established. I plan to learn more of these methods and will report back to you.

Gold Finch in tall grass This Spring the original few acres were “scorched” to weaken some invasive tree seedlings and other weeds. Prairie plants have amazingly deep roots, often 8-10 feet, which allow survival after scorching. In natural prairie settings, dry years often bring flash fires which scorch the earth, accomplishing the same goal. Apparently, firefighters used propane flame throwers to do the job, under the supervision of prairie experts. I remember the brown and black earth smelling of smoke in early Spring. Now it’s filled with 9 foot giant cup plants and hundreds of other flowers.

Whetstone Prairie looking West I know I’ve barely touched on the details of this beautiful project, but I will be writing regularly about this prairie, which is now central to my meditative walks.

It’s difficult to capture the mood of the place; exuberant bird song fills the field, echoing off the high canopy of trees surrounding it. There are two large trees in the middle of the field, which often “hold” the sun as it sets. Hundreds of goldfinches flutter around the sunflowers now in bloom.

Black Eyed Susan Glancing around the blogosphere, I’m sure there are numerous such projects. One post I found was about a Dallas area park featuring wild areas for mixed use.

Another lesson from this local wild prairie is which plants might be useful in our own private gardens. Native plants and wild flowers tend to be more durable over the long run and will also help rejuvenate the local habitat of your area. Many of the flowers listed above are easy to grow and beautiful in any garden.

In my next post I’ll feature photos of many of the flowers now in bloom.

Evolution of a Garden

Published
by
Garnet David
on July 19, 2006
in Garden and Nature
. 7 Comments

Evolution of a Garden- 93 West Dunedin Road

Front, PanoramaMy garden was recently featured on a voluntary public tour of gardens in Columbus. One day per month from April to September anyone can submit their garden to be advertised for the tour. I was pleasantly busy with visitors for four hours. Of those who came by, several had seen my garden when it was on the tour 10 years ago. Gardeners are a dedicated bunch.

Front, Cherub gardenTo give visitors some perspective on what I’ve done with the garden, I printed out the following brief history. For this post, I’ve added a few photos of the main features. To view many more, larger photos of the garden from the tour, please go to this link (Garden Photos) and click on “start slideshow” in the top right corner.

Gardening is a duet with nature. I relish each new theme and variations.

I’ve always enjoyed plants: their habits, architectures, flowers, fragrances, leaf shapes and colors. My garden has a strong evergreen structure filled out by a great variety of plants for all seasons, with blooms from February to October. Given the amount of shade provided by two ancient “Chinquapin” Oaks on either side of my house, I rely less on flowers and instead explore whimsical combinations of plants with variegated leaves, whose colors brighten the shadows all summer long.

Front YardFront from Street

When I bought this house in 1990, the front of the property was nicely landscaped, having been done professionally in 1983. Since then, however, I’ve added to or renovated most of it.

Remnants of that original design line the porch, including the glorious 23 year old Miniature Blue Spruce, now 6 feet high and wide. You can see it in the above photo, smack in the center of the house.

Some of the specimen plants I added those first few years have matured nicely. These include the “Purple Fountain” Weeping Beech (pictured in the next photo)Purple Fountain Weeping Beech and a Japanese White Pine by the street, a slow growing “Fernspray” Cypress near the driveway, and the Weeping Japanese Maple next to the Blue Spruce. All of these have been established for 15-17 years.

I recently had a very large Bradford Pear removed from the front yard. (this post Beginnings and Endings contains before and after photos). This tree was shading the yard to death and was susceptible to splitting. Not only have I gained some sun, but now I can see my house from the street!

The newly open and sunny front yard inspired major re-landscaping. However, I tried to reuse plants from the previous shady garden, including hostas, ferns, azaleas and woodland plants. So far they seem fine in half sun.

"blushing" Japanese MapleIn the old Pear’s spot as the centerpiece of the front yard, is an “unlabeled” Japanese Maple, which I found at strader’s Nursery. As I browsed the store for interesting trees, an orange glow called to me from a row of plain, green maples! It has a unique orange “Fall” color at the tips of its branches, I look forward to watching this “blushing tree” mature.

Front bed, with Tiger Eyes SumacsOther newer plants of note in front are a “Silver Cloud” variegated Redbud, a contorted Filbert on a standard, and two “Tiger’s Eye” cutleaf Sumacs, and a “Golden Moon Glow” Japanese Maple. Each offers some ornamental leaf color and/or shape feature to add interest.

Back Yard

In 1990, the backyard had little landscaping. A huge, wooden “Jungle Gym” playhouse took up most of the back. It was surrounded by a sea of pea gravel. The soil was terrible, mostly limestone rubble and clay.

As you can see, much has taken place since then.Back Garden, whole, from roof

I resued some of the materials from the original backyard. For example, the floor of the vine covered gazebo way in back is the recycled platform of that old playhouse, used as it was. The pea gravel has been spread out among the flagstones of the patio and the driveway.

I recently removed a large, overgrown Blue Spruce from the back right corner. Replacing it is a Columnar Red Beech and a Bottlebrush Buckeye. The columnar Beech will eventually tower up to 60 feet, but will never grow wider than 10 feet. Therefore it will never interfere with the powerlines running along the back of the property. The Bottlebruch Buckeye will form a 10 foot mound in the back corner, covering the ugly chainlink fence. It’s summer flowers really look like bottle brushes.

Back, featuring the 3 structure plantsA mature Holly Tree near the garage is an orphan plant which had been discarded by a friend, and which had been chopped off to flatten it. It has come a long way in 16 years.

The tall, slim Hinoki Cypress (in the middle), the Holly Tree (on the left) and the Columnar Beech (in the back right), form the structural triangle of the back yard. The rest of the design is built around these plant bones, along with the “hardscape” elements of patio, gazebo and path.

Enjoy your stay, and please let me know if you have any questions.

The Sound of my Soul.

Published
by
Garnet David
on June 27, 2006
in Deep Thoughts, Garden and Nature, Inspiration, Philosophical Questions, Ramblings and Spirituality
. 19 Comments

It’s perfect. The garden view outside the window of my computer desk is beautiful, stunning in its passing perfection. It will never be the same again. Does it ever need to be? I have seen it. Or have I?

The power of doubt can be misleading. It can loosen sanity, unhinge it. An overdose, of sorts, blinding the simple sight of the soul’s awareness of the world. We doubt in order to discern, question to learn. But as with any tool, improper use can be dangerous.
Back Garden from House
A garden is a symphony of textures, colors, scenes, structures, singing four movements continuously, an ever rich and complex variation on multiple themes, an interaction of style and chance. My intervention is a duet, rather than a composition.

The sound of my soul whirs as its engine pumps through me. Blood carries the air of breath to my flesh and bones. Sparks of electricity flash, giving light to gray lobes. The body is the turbine of the spirit, its instrument. It’s how the soul learns of its own existence, temporarily cleaved from the raw stuff of stars. It will never be the same. Yet it continues beyond, and also precedes, the corporeal self. It is never born and never dies. Loopy African Daisys

The spirit that doubts itself is troubled. Be gentle and know your rightful peace. No fairy tale book need be consulted to affirm its presence. The garden hums its tune, singing a healing hymn, if one is listening.
White Flower Scene
Know your rightful Peace.

Hear your conscience.

Listen to your soul’s music.

It will never be the same.

Garden of Growth, II

Published
by
Garnet David
on April 11, 2006
in Garden and Nature, Noteworthy and Poetry
. 8 Comments

Clivia, African Lily

Upon revisiting and revising this poem, I noticed how much its message applies to life in general. As I age and hopefully grow wiser, I am learning that letting go of habits is not only vital to happiness. It’s also vital to learning and to growing as a person. I’ve recently started studying Alexander Technique, which I will write about more soon. One of the basic lessons of the method is to let go of the tension in the neck and stay open in your awareness. This is harder to do than one might think. Alexander called it Primary Control. I like to think of it as Primary Flow. Let each second go as it happens. Repeat. Rather than creating a superficial life, this idea allows one to experience the richness of the moment much more deeply.

The seeds emerge naked from gray, rough soil,
though most will perish as grist of earth’s scheme.
Their compost holds kernels of mealy toil,
micro teams, tiny mules carrying molecule dreams.
This war marches on. The drama rolls fresh
with each rising and falling of seasonal flesh.

I used to gently cradle those leafy twigs,
pining within their rhythmical trance.
I fiddled and darted, lost and ready
to control that volume of verdant folly.
I toiled from dawn to dusk to cage this romance.
I staked stems, preened buds,
willed red berries on holly’s branches.
I beamed with delight at delphiniums blue night
but daily squished aphids with horrible fright.
Hinoki’s form would finally reach balance,
necessitating tragic hacking of nearby Hamamelis.
Trailing Nasturtium must ramble freely
over carefully chaotic, mossy patio.
Cardinal Richelieu finally gave up the ghost
after five uprootings to aptly pair
his wine purple rose with more heathen hosts.

I strove to capture kairos*, embed its seething flair.
This chimera dwindled with thousands of hours
of pushing days in a stubborn wheelbarrow,
driving my load to pattern and style this living
sculpture into rank and file soldiers of my lair.
Time ground me down with its meticulous power.

As I feared, things went wild. They flattened
and ruptured and cheated my rules.
The Lungwort blasted forth, had its own way
and colonized insouciantly with its spotted tribe.
Autumn Clematis scrambled over trellises
and basked in the sun, surveying the fool’s
game down below, laughing at all the fun.

Then, tough rubric knots let loose their tether
as my life became twinned by other urgent events.
Watching from afar, the garden seemed closer than before.
And Plumbago’s happy scurry beneath
pink Asters fence seemed their own private
dispute, their outcome to pass sentence.

Five years have passed since I relinquished power.
Ten years before that I clutched at this stream
while its crumbled message sifted through my fingers.
From my rough hubris sprouted this quiet lesson:
The constancy of change remains new for the ages.
I come away sage, having learned not to confuse
dreams of perfection with nature’s carnival muse.

*From Wikipedia- Kairos is an ancient Greek word meaning the "right or opportune moment". It is now used in theology to describe the qualitative form of time. In rhetoric kairos is "a passing instant when an opening appears which must be driven through with force if success is to be achieved." (E. C. White, Kaironomia p. 13)

Beginnings and Endings

Published
by
Garnet David
on January 30, 2006
in Deep Thoughts, Garden and Nature, Healing, Inspiration and Personal
. 18 Comments

The maturity of man— that means, to have reacquired the seriousness one had as a child at play. F. Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil

I wrote the following thoughts in 1987, inspired by the Nietzsche quote. Revisiting them now, I wonder if I’ve lived by them. I try to fill up all the gaps in my life. Why? Mortality. Fear of death. It’s only natural. Yet the original intent of those words still rings within me, muted by doubt, tempered by experience.

The very verbiage with which we play every day, like a child in a sandbox, often reveals shiny objects. But isn’t luster lost with too much handling? And aren’t the shiniest of those mere reflections of light from elsewhere? Yet who would deny the child chasing a butterfly or a star? What of the mother-of-pearl shell we’ve found, taken home, washed and put on the windowsill, then forgotten? What really matters?

The sadness I carry while burying my departed dog is a reflection, another side, of the sweet emotion I use to wet my lover’s lips today. It is the beginning of some end.

The artist alone know the complexity of the blackest black. And only she knows where and how to use it in the shadows of the sunniest painting.

To tattoo our entire body with the greatest symbols of man would not begin to betray the seriousness of the cat sitting by the window watching snow fall. But who watches the cat? Who watches the watcher?

May you love the seriousness which goes beyond Good and Evil.

Nearly 20 years has passed. Almost half my life has been lived in the meantime, done with, finished. Yet endings are continuous, always revealing something new. I face forward.

A few days ago I had a large Bradford pear tree cut down. It was at least 22 years old, pretty old for that kind of tree. The older varieties, of which this was one, were known for splitting at the “crotches” of their many, heavy limbs. Depending on where and how a large branch fell, it could cause severe damage. I had taken measures to support the weaker joints over the years. I had even had the canopy lowered to relieve the top heavy weight.

Luckily this one had not yet split. But a large crack had formed in one of the larger crotches. Besides, I was tired of raking leaves in December, since it held its leaves very late. Its span covered my entire front yard, so its branches were slowly shading to death all the plants beneath its canopy. The time had come.
before tree removal
That tree was there when I bought the house 15 years ago. Now it’s gone. It’s unique and particular branch structure is no more. I thought about how it came from a single seed. For twenty some years it carved its way upward against gravity. It endured heavy winds, ice storms and bitter cold. It was a vigorous tree, covered with white flowers in Spring. In Fall it often glowed with bright yellow to orange leaves. Its branches housed numerous squirrel and bird nests. I had hung several wind chimes in its branches. My cats had climbed it hundreds of times, sharpening their nails on its stout, craggy bark. Most Winters, on a warmish day when I felt a bit of Spring fever, I’d get out the saw and prune its branches. I enjoyed the exercise and feeling of accomplishment. This tree endured many, many prunings. I thank it for its shade, for its vigor, for its life.
Pear tree gone
The day it was cut down, I was tense. Naturally, I feared some kind of accident, damage to my house or my other plants, or perhaps the climber would fall. All went well. Upon seeing the empty space right after it was removed, I felt anxious about having done it. I don’t like cutting down trees. Too many beautiful trees have been removed on my street recently. But I knew I had little choice.

As I stood looking at the open front yard, my neighbor came over and told me she had seen a red tailed hawk circling interestedly over my fron yard within hours of the tree’s disappearance. It seemed a healthy omen from nature. What do you think?

Now my front yard is open for the first time since I’ve lived here, a third of my life. The house, with its rich colors, will be more visible from the street. With more light the ornamental plants around it will now flourish. I can begin to replant the 100’s of crocuses which used to flourish with a burst of rich color in the small lawn area each Spring.

I’m already dreaming about which small, ornamental tree will fill that prime spot in my front yard. The shocking change has inspired me toward gardening for the first time in years. The loss of that pear tree will perhaps mark other new beginnings for me. If I allow myself the childish seriousness Nietzsche wrote of, I can feel it. Change carries both death and life. Endings and Beginnings.