Too Much of a Good Thing?

After 29 days and 29 nights of rain in June, it’s great to see some sunshine and be able to get back out into the garden to work. Watch out though, the poison ivy looks like elephant ears! There are other perils, as well. Last weekend, I put an ungloved hand under some perennials to yank weeds out nearer to the root and got a handful of slime. Never did figure out what that was.

Most of the garden is doing OK despite the cool temperatures and constant wetness, but I fear for my Irises. I have some particularly lovely light blues of unknown parentage. Initially all of the moisture caused them to throw up enormous fans and large blooms. But as time went on with no relief from the dark and the rain, the fans started to rot. Here’s hoping that the rhizomes are not completely lost, as well.

The tomatoes are marking time and have not bloomed. Fortunately I started all of mine from seed that I gathered last year and, thus, have escaped the dreaded late blight. But now, I’m becoming concerned that I may get no fruit before frost.

The roses have fared surprisingly well, putting forth luxuriant blooms and hardly any sign of black spot. The Ironweed is approaching six feet in height. The lilies have taken a beating, but are still blooming. Out front, the Lavender garden looks spectacular, thanks to its quick-draining underpinnings of limestone gravel.

But the big winners seem to be the slugs and the lawn. Makes you wonder how much water we waste keeping our lawns green in a normal year.

Restoring Habitat

In the middle of her election campaign for Township Committee, Lois took a day “off” on May 8th to head a group of volunteers who planted more than 300 bare-root shrubs during Andover Township’s Spring Detention Basin Planting Day. “Nature doesn’t wait until it’s convenient,” she said. Planting conditions were perfect: An overcast day that had been preceded by a week of rain.

NJ Department of Environmental Protection’s preferred Best Management Practice for handling stormwater over large areas is the so-called Marsh Meadow Detention Basin, designed to mimic a natural wetland. They are low/no maintenance, eliminate the need for fertilizer and pesticide treatments, act as a visual and physical buffer, control erosion, act as biolfilters, and restore wildlife habitat.

This year, local Girl Scouts led by Liz Kapuscinski assisted Commissioner Harvey Hummel in planting the basin at the municipal building

Thanks to everyone who participated, from left: Environmental Commission Vice-Chair Peter Spinney, Fred and Commissioner Diane Gillespie, Commissioners Linda Hubbard, Bob Green (rear) and Harvey Hummel, Commission Chair Lois de Vries, Partners in Wildlife Biologist Brian Marsh, and Master Gardener Irene Christodlous.

Cleaning Up the Town

Do you have an annual cleanup day in your town? This is the third year for Andover and about 200 people participated, including girl and boy scout troops, as well as a local track team. In New Jersey, grant funds are available for towns to purchase gloves, T-shirts, vests, road signs, etc. for the volunteers. A bagel breakfast and pizza lunch were served. I can tell you from experience, food always draws more volunteers.

While anyone can say they “love the environment,” actions speak louder than words. Lois not only pitched in and recruited her husband Dan for Cleaner, Greener Andover Day, she also signed up the Environmental Commission to work as a team. Pictured top, from left are Commissioners Linda Hubbard, Bob Green, Lois, Open Space Chair Dan Freed, and Commissioner Peter Spinney. Not pictured is Commissioner Diane Gillespie.

The Environmental Commission team patrolled its assigned neighborhood collecting tires, a discarded lawnmower, two bags of recyclables, and six bags of garbage. They couldn’t reach the tires that had been thrown into the pond.

It was interesting to hear comments such as, “Why don’t the people who live here clean up their own neighborhood?” An interesting question, indeed. Because, if we all did that on a regular basis, there would be no need for all of those volunteers to scour our roads. Too often, it’s not the residents themselves who toss the litter. Not infrequently, I garden to the clink of bottles and cans as they hit our lower ledge after being tossed out of windows of passing cars.

Being angry at strangers who litter and dump tires, furniture, and other household junk along our roads and waterways doesn’t help the environment. Picking it up does. If your town doesn’t already host an annual cleanup day, start one yourself.

Drawing the Eye Through the Garden

Using repetition and focal points to draw the eye through the garden makes it seem larger. We combined both techniques last fall and fulfilled a dream of many years by filling the middle space between the deer exclosure and the garden house with bulbs. We’ve tried small experiments in the past, such as planting Grape Hyacinths, but these were quickly nibbled to the nubs before they even had time to bloom.

Instead, there are Daffodils, which deer will not eat. In May, there will be blue Wood Hyacinths, though their fate in the deer stomping grounds is uncertain. Some escapees from the garden bloomed without incident in this space last year, so we were encouraged to try them.

There will also be pink Bleeding Heart, as I continue to remove the progeny of my original plant from the White Garden. Deer don’t like them, but they did get nibbled last year. Bleeding Heart are so prolific that it isn’t much of an effort to move them out back.

And, there are now enough Hellebores in the garden to try some outside the exclosure. We’ll find out this year whether or not the deer leave them alone.

The focal point is, of course, the garden house in the distance. We already had clumps of daffodils throughout the garden, so we used the new bulbs to build a visual connection from the existing garden to the garden house. This part of our property has a nearly-closed tree canopy come summer, so we concentrate our efforts on plants that bloom in the spring.

In a more formal space, the parallel lines of path edges can be used to pull the eye towards an urn, armillary sphere, sundial, etc., mounted on a column or plinth. In very small gardens, forced perspective can be created by angling the edges of the path towards one another. This creates the illusion that there is more depth than actually exists.

An Apple a Day

Within the past year, I’ve been trying to improve my food choices, both for health reasons and to control my weight. In the course of substituting apples for chips and cheese crackers (it was the crunch I craved), I’ve rediscovered a childhood fondness for fruit.

For years, we’ve muddled along with our single McIntosh apple tree, one of a pair planted by my parents 60 years ago. They were supposed to be semi-dwarfs, but the tree now towers above our house, exploding in blooms and scenting the entire yard each spring. This tree is a major food source, not only for us, but also for our resident woodchucks, as well as blue jays, squirrels, and chipmunks.

Since we put up the deer exclosure, we now load up bags of surplus fruit and carry them out into the woods. But last year, a rampant infestation of gypsy moths devastated our property and we had no mature apples at all. Here’s hoping the old tree can recover.

Tomorrow, Dan and I will plant the second of two dwarf apple trees we’ve decided to add – a Harleson (also called Harrelson or Haralson). I’d never heard of this type of apple, but why would I? Like Dan, it’s a Midwesterner. I was once able to find a case of these to buy for Dan’s birthday and he still talks about it as the best present ever. I have to agree they taste great.

My choice, a Winesap (photo) tree, went in last week. It’s interesting how gardeners can look at a skinny stick in the ground and see a canopied tree covered with blooms or fruit. What would gardening be, if it weren’t for our dreams of a flourishing future?

In my mind’s eye I have enough time, and a small enough orchard, to tend to the new apple trees properly. But even if I don’t, they, like their older sibling, will be productive enough to fill our larder and satisfy my need for a good crunch at least once a day.

With Our Own Hands

Sometimes, we need to take matters into our own hands; in the garden, in life, and in politics. After eight years of banging my head against the brick wall of indifference and hostility towards conservation and environmental issues at the Environmental Commission and Land Use Board level, I’m raising the bar.

I’ve thrown my hat in the ring for elected office --- our Township Committee. With luck and hard work, I’m hoping that our town will never be the same again. Andover Township, located in northwestern New Jersey has a uniquely sensitive environment. So sensitive that The Nature Conservancy has purchased several parcels, some of which are home to species found in only four other places on the planet.

The town lies in two distinct physiographic provinces --- the Highlands and Valley and Ridge. The latter includes the Great Limestone Valley, home to plants and animals unique to limestone fens and a major aquifer. Since most of the private and “public” water in our town comes from wells, you would think people here would guard this precious resource with their lives.

Yet, a previous administration allowed a sewer plant (shown above) to be sited on top of the aquifer that feeds thousands of homes in many towns in our region. Several proponents have tried to convince me that the water coming out of today’s state-of-the-art purification systems is cleaner than a natural stream. Yet, none of these people has ever taken me up on my request to watch them drink that super-clean water straight from a sewer plant. When they drink it, I’ll believe it.

Fortunately for us, Nature herself stepped in and provided a solution. For now.

A number of wells and ponds in Andover are hydraulically connected to the aquifer. We found this out in 2005, when a nearby quarry stopped pumping 8 million gallons of water a day out of the quarry pit. The water table rose by 35 feet. Ponds that had disappeared were restored; water surrounded the sewer plant. Imagine the disaster that we would have had, if the sewer plant had been operational. But the looming shell still sits there, waiting for an opportunity.

Now, the adjacent town intends to allow a private company to pump 2 billion (that’s billion with a “b”) gallons per day to line their pockets with cash. Playing with people’s lives this way is immoral. I can no longer sit on the sidelines and watch my neighbors twitch and tremble as their lives are manipulated by those who care only about themselves. I’m taking matters into my own hands.

You can see my campaign blog at http://www.voteforloisdevries.blogspot.com

Gardening from Scratch

Happy Spring everybody! Let the gardening season begin. This year I decided to grow more plants from seed and I’m having a blast. I know I started too early, the first weekend in February, but cabin fever was at such a pitch that it overcame my better judgment.

My seed-starter kit has a water-reservoir in the bottom that keeps the soiless mix moist. It sits on my desk in front of an east-facing window, so I can check frequently to see what’s growing. The Mesculun mix, cherry and Cherokee tomatoes, and Galeux d’Eysines pumpkin have all moved on into their transplant pots. What remains are the miniature fans of Candy Lily (Pardancanda), seedlings of Columbine (Aquilegia), and a couple of stray tomatoes that came up after I disturbed the starter mix.

Last year, I bought an inexpensive greenhouse on wheels at Lowe’s for $35 in order to buy garden center plants early and hold them over until they could go into the ground. This year, I put it indoors, without its plastic cover, in front of the French doors. It holds my transplants and rootings of Coleus and Begonia. On rainy days, a Gro-light compensates for the lack of sun.

I didn’t really start this gardening from scratch to save money, but rather to make sure I’d have the plants I loved. Commercial growers are so much in the same mode as the fashion industry these days; always a new color, spikier leaves, different growth habit, that it sometimes becomes very difficult to find the right old-fashioned flower in the right old-fashioned color. There’s something to be said, too, for the always-magical experience of being able to watch your own seeds sprout and grow.