Leaf Blower News from California and Some Lawn-Bashing in the NYTimes

Did you hear about the GREAT news from California? The legislature passed and the governor signed a law banning gas-powered leaf-blowers and lawn-mowers! (Also chain saws, weed-trimmers and golf carts.) The ban takes effect as early as 2024, when all newly sold small-motor equipment primarily used for landscaping have to be zero-emission – either battery-operated or plugged-in.  The law applies only to any engines of less than 25 gross horsepower, so it doesn’t apply to on-road motor vehicles, off-road motorcycles, all-terrain vehicles, boats, snowmobiles or model airplanes, cars or boats.

Yes, it’s a burden for the landscape-care industry, so the state set aside $30 million to help professional landscapers make the transition. Industry representatives say that’s not adequate for the estimated 50,000 small businesses that will be affected by the law. 

Margaret Renkl’s Rant in the NY Times

Nashville-based Margaret Renkl included the California news in her column  “First Thing We Do, Let’s Kill All the Leaf Blowers,” describing the noise in fall as a “deafening, surging swarm, blasting from lawn to lawn and filling the air with the stench of gasoline and death. I would call them mechanical locusts…”

She quotes Audobon Magazine:

Some produce more than 100 decibels of low-frequency, wall-penetrating sound — or as much noise as a plane taking off — at levels that can cause tinnitus and hearing loss with long exposure.”

And the DC-based writer James Fallows:

James Fallows summarized the emissions problem this way: “Using a two-stroke engine is like heating your house with an open pit fire in the living room — and chopping down your trees to keep it going, and trying to whoosh away the fetid black smoke before your children are poisoned by it.”

I’m SO on board with these sentiments! I too hate the noise but also the crap they blow into my eyes whenever one is operating nearby.

A National Trend?

Quoting Renkl, 

 Only the Environmental Protection Agency can set emission standards. But California, owing to its unique climate and geography, which allow airborne pollutants to coalesce and linger, is the exception to this federal limitation. Other states can opt to follow California’s more stringent tailpipe emissions standards, as 12 states and the District of Columbia do.

More than 100 cities across the country have already passed regulations to ban or restrict gas-powered leaf blowers. For people committed to their manicured lawns, the good news is that powerful electric and battery-operated leaf blowers now exist, and they are quieter and greener and healthier than gasoline-powered blowers. Their market share is also growing rapidly; electric equipment now represents roughly 44 percent of lawn-care machinery sales.

Kill your Lawn, Too!

But then Renkl goes after lawns – all of them:

Nearly everything about how Americans “care” for their lawns is deadly. Pesticides prevent wildflower seeds from germinating and poison the insects that feed songbirds and other wildlife. Lawn mower blades, set too low, chop into bits the snakes and turtles and baby rabbits that can’t get away in time. Mulch, piled too deep, smothers ground-nesting bees, and often the very plants that mulch is supposed to protect, as well.

Then, while endorsing another popular meme – Leave the Leaves! – she slings this zinger at turfgrass:

[Leave the leaves] if your lawn consists of entirely of unvariegated turf grass (which it should not, given that turf grass requires immense amounts of water and poison to maintain). 

Like SO many Americans with lawns, when I had one I dumped neither poison NOR water on it. Eco-gardeners these days promote “good-enough lawns” that are care-free and require NO inputs, much less poisons and scarce water resources. (Okay, maybe some overseeding, watering in the new seeds, and aerating every few years if the soil is compacted.)

And from my observation, most regular homeowners take the lowest-maintenance approach possible, especially when it comes to buying the “poisons” and having to apply them. That’s no fun. I imagine.  Never done it! 

Oh, and Renkl’s term “unvariegated turf grass” is something she must have invented. At least hers is the only use of the term to be found online. If she meant perfect, uniform lawns, we’d know that’s what that means – not the typical good-enough one.

But speaking of attack high-maintenance, golf-course-quality lawn care that’s done by the wealthiest minority of homeowners, let’s keep on ranting about it, maybe changing more laws.

But lumping all lawn-owners in one batch of poisoners can turn off some who might just improve their lawn-care practices with good information – and no shaming.

Back to Renkl’s column. When I see sweeping generalizations I naturally click on the author’s source (if there IS one), and in this case I assumed that Renkl was misinterpreting or exaggerating some study or other. The article she linked to is “Electric or Gas Leaf Blowers…Neither?” from Washington University in St. Louis. Call me a stickler but that article says NOTHING about water and poisons being required to maintain turfgass. 

I guess the NYT doesn’t have factcheckers. In this case I’m not surprised – I’ve seen other exaggerations in Renkl’s columns. 

That’s so unlike the Times’s actual garden writer, the reliably trustworthy Margaret Roach. She does the research, and keeps doing it.

Washington University and “Leave the Leaves” 

But I was sorry to see that the Wash. U. article go farther, using the Xerces Society as a source:

Leaves are free mulch, protecting perennial plants, especially those that sprout early. Consider piling leaves on empty vegetable beds or perennial beds, or around the bases of trees to protect from cold and keep in moisture

Oh, dear! I complained about statements like that in my 2015 post “The NWF’s Terrible, No-Good Gardening Advice Goes Viral.” In it, I challenged the idea that turfgrass and ALL perennials are just fine under a bed of leaves all winter. Not all plants are the same!

Interestingly (or sadly), the National Wildlife Federation’s original article (just ignore the title) actually advises leaf-leaving IN WOODLANDS, not gardens! But others have taken up the meme and run with it for gardens, period.

Is it possible to say “Most plants are fine under a bed of leaves all winter – but check!” For checking I’d suggest reading about them – do they like to dry out between rains? Or uncovering some of your sun-loving plants from places where leaves don’t fall (Mediterranean climates with few deciduous trees), like lamb’s ears or groundcover Sedums, to see if they’re doing okay.

But I know that’s way too complicated for memes. And meme’s gotta meme!

Leaf Blower News from California and Some Lawn-Bashing in the NYTimes originally appeared on GardenRant on October 29, 2021.

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Garden light

Autumn may be the most wonderful time to enjoy the effects of light in the garden. The sun is lower and softer, and the result can be amazing.

We have anything but a flat garden. It does give visitors a good initial overview, and we are sheltered from the worst winds by virtue of a huge ridge behind us – to the south.

This is a view into a small valley, rising to the woods at the far side. The ridge behind the garden is to the right, and to the south.

So my photographer husband complains about it every year. Photographers like flat gardens. They may be boring (flat gardens) but any available light will be there, and light is what photographers need and enjoy. It’s why they get out of bed at unbelievable times when the rest of us are still asleep. Anyway, having a huge ridge above us to the south means that in winter, when the sun is low, we can lose all sunshine for two weeks or more. And for quite a while it is filtered through trees on the horizon.

You need that sunshine if you’re going to enjoy the best of any snow or frost. Snow without sun is rather flat, and like flat gardens… boring. And it’s not only for photographs that that matters. It’s rather dull and disappointing for a spectator or snowman too. (sorry, ‘snow person’?)

You can see some of that effect here, where the sun has got into the woods:

The light in the woods shows how comparatively dull the frost on the hedges looks.

So, it’s a bit of a shame in a way that a light lover like me has this dead time in winter. But in autumn and spring the sun reaches over that horizon and lights up the garden in a glory that summer never quite manages. Summer sun is rather too harsh.

When we open the garden we watch the weather forecast anxiously, dreading rain most of all. Rain is a bit of a killer to garden delight. But really so is  bright sunshine, which can make it hard to really see and appreciate a garden. Never mind that at too high a temperature garden visiting can be exhausting. I hate heat!

Our openings are basically dictated by the times when people expect to visit a garden. In the UK that’s mostly Sunday afternoon. Mornings and afternoons during the week are close followers for groups – except at Veddw, where we charge extra to any party which tries to get us out of bed early. Yet, apart maybe from dawn, which I have no experience of, the evening is the time when the light is most likely to be glorious. It is evening light which gives us these amazing reflections:

Photograph courtesy of Charles Hawes.  This is evening light – paying visitors sadly miss this.

And autumn, when we’re also closed, may be the very best time, the time when adding sun to autumn colour can truly take your breath away.

Vitis coignetiae doing its thing.

Sun spotlighting.

And look what sunlight can do to ornamental grasses in their late season colour:

 Miscanthus Malepartus, Veddw, copyright Anne Wareham

But its not always about those glowing oranges and reds. It’s light which does this for us too:

Light is our greatest partner of all in the garden. No matter what we do, however well we employ our resources and create scenes of splendour and delight, it is light that will transform it all into beauty. The world is rather dull in our country until someone turns the light on. Then suddenly there is joy and beauty.

These ferns suddenly came alive….

It’s quite hard to know what to do with all this when you have it. It can be quite overwhelming. I can look up from my desk and see  sun pointing out the glow of a tree, as demanding as any teacher requiring an instant response. Or Pampas Grass suddenly illuminated:

It makes me want to wave my arms about, jump up and down or rush around mindlessly. I even take pictures from the car (as a passenger only..)

Soon these beeches will go orange…!!

And would I have taken this picture of that bloke pruning a holly unless the light in the trees had set me alight?

I can love light in winter even with no sun the garden:

The Reflecting Pool melting…

and I love those ominous skies with light breaking through brooding cloud in spring:

A storm may be on the way?

And when the sun shines behind a flower you suddenly see it quite differently:

Thalictrum aquilegifolium

I love the meadow in the early evening:

And in the meadow, the globes capture all the light in the sky, so that they even glow in moonlight. I haven’t taken photographs in moonlight though.

BUT  the sun can be dangerous, even in Wales. So sadly this is a picture I daren’t replicate, having caused smouldering with a crystal ball once:

Is autumn maybe the absolute best?? Sorry, visitors – you’d have to book a special to see ours. But you probably have plenty of your own. Some countries and climates do much better than we do. What a treat.

The downside is that that low autumn sun makes the windows look filthy.

Garden light originally appeared on GardenRant on October 28, 2021.

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Halloween in the garden

The word “hallow” derives from the Old English halig, meaning holy. All Hallows Eve, the evening before the holiness of All Saints Day (November 1st) is the night when the ghosts and ghouls come out—hence the garish plastic ghoulishness of many a suburban Halloween garden display. People used to be content to celebrate Halloween with a pumpkin jack-o-lantern in the window, but now many front yards host a whole stage set of Halloween characters, and keep them up a full month.

The surge in popularity of a month-long domestic Halloween display during the COVID-pandemic was understandable; people in many parts of the world were locked down and entertainment had to take place outdoors and at a distance. No one wants to open their front door to unknown trick-or-treaters during a pandemic; that turned out to be a boon to the marketers of massive howling electrically-activated Halloween light shows.

It used to be that Halloween was a time to display what came out of the garden, not to put pre-fabricated objects into it. It was the time to burn fallen branches on a bonfire and share the marrow harvest, a time for apple-bobbing and making witch faces out of the ones that had wrinkled past their best-before date. It was the night for pumpkin-carving artistry, candles flickering on windowsills, and porch lights left on for costumed candy-harvesting kids. Now the costumes are worn by the plastic ghouls and Halloween is families walking the neighborhoods viewing them.

The demotion of the apples and marrows—which is a demotion of the earth-based symbolism around the harvest season—seems a pity. Halloween in agricultural societies was one of the highest of annual holidays; it was a celebration of successful harvest, restocked food laid in for winter, and a season of relative leisure, much like the semi-hibernation of the plant and animal world.

We can still celebrate All Hallows Eve by including the bats and owls that used to take a leading role. If we want bats, we can leave hollow trunks standing, with cavities for nests. If we want owls, we could plant pine, beech, cedar, and cottonwoods. They like to roost in large trees and hate glare, so the suburban garden Halloween light display is ironically anti-owl, despite their presence on Halloween greeting cards.

Some folks miss the old days when nongenetically engineered pumpkins emitted that specially pungent pumpkin-scent at the first insertion of the carving knife. We can’t recapture that from the pumpkins piled in the grocery store parking lots, nor will we scoop out seeds that can be planted for a crop next year. We can, though, in most areas, get organically grown pumpkins or seeds from open-pollinated crops planted at organic nurseries or from online sources. The scent of pumpkin seeds and pulp is most enjoyable when mingled with autumnal bonfire smokiness and the heady aroma of leaves decaying in rich soil, evoking pagan earth-based race-memories of seasonality under the harvest moon. These are memories no mechanized display can recapture.

Halloween in the garden originally appeared on GardenRant on October 27, 2021.

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I know: just kick everybody off Facebook but the gardeners

Gardeners may occupy one of the more benign sectors of social media. I was thinking of this after seeing headlines citing “indisputable harm,” “rage and misinformation,” and “choosing growth over safety” in today’s Washington Post. It’s all part of the fallout over the recent release of the Facebook Papers. This has been building for a while, but the drumbeat is getting loud enough to suggest something might actually happen. What, I don’t know.

I’ll be sorry if Facebook goes away, for many reasons. For one, it’s an easy way for businesses to establish a presence on the web. Many restaurants that don’t have the expertise, time, or other resources to maintain a robust, updated website can get most of what they want done via Facebook. As a magazine editor, when looking up events and other info, I often trust a business’s Facebook page over its website, because it’s a simpler matter to update. And then there are the benefits we’re all familiar with, like keeping in touch with geographically distant friends and relatives or just a way for busy people to maintain contacts of all sorts.

Our local Facebook gardeners’ group (above), which has close to 9,000 members, was threatened with extinction over a hoe-related brouhaha a few months back, but, as outraged and exasperated as members were, it was mainly because they wanted the group to continue. They appreciated the opportunity it provided to get answers, share successes, or just complain about the weather. A group like this takes some policing, and we, the admins, get disgruntled complaints now and then, but, overall, it’s been a success. We can never forget we’re at the mercy of Facebook, which recently changed its group protocols, but we also know that Facebook does offer tools that allow control—and we use them.

It is maddening that the small, “kinder and gentler” groups who use this network may suffer just as much as the extremists, spammers, clickbaiters, and others who have benefited from poor regulation. Indeed, the bad actors likely won’t suffer; they’ll just move over to another vulnerable arena. I may complain about inaccurate gardening info existing on a level playing field with factual advice, but, over the months, I’ve also seen that most group members seem to be able to weed out the nonsense. I guess I’ve learned to stop worrying and accept the occasional chaos of it all. It may be an evil empire, but I’ve gotten used to it—and so have a lot of other gardeners.

I know: just kick everybody off Facebook but the gardeners originally appeared on GardenRant on October 26, 2021.

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Why am I JUST Discovering Zinnias in Borders?

Zinnias at the Delaware Botanic Garden

Zinnias – I’m reading everywhere about their fabulousness in attracting pollinators, especially butterflies. In fact, when I googled the topic I surprised myself by finding my very own post, from 2015. I won’t repeat any of that but still recommend that link for info about which varieties are best at that, at least in the informal trials of one Maryland gardeners near me.

(I was also surprised that in that old post I pledged to grow Zinnias as part of a new pollinator garden, which I don’t believe I ever did. Never mind!)   

The chorus of praise for Zinnias seemed to grow louder this year and recently Elizabeth declared her love for them, saying she’ll never be without them again! She reported on success with seedlings (not seeds), and planting them in containers.

Even one Zinnia in a border catches the eye, right? So next year – MORE!

And she’s not the only GardenRanter taking up the cause. This year I experimented with both Zinnias and Marigolds directly in my borders, something I’d never done, and was wow’d by the impact they had. Okay, not the Marigolds – too small – but even just one Zinnia can pack quite a punch. Or to speak in HGTV lingo, they POP!

So my question is – when did they get so great-looking? So large, with such vibrant colors? Is it new hybrids are catching my eye or have I just been immune to Zinnias’ charms all along? 

Above, the other orange Zinnia I planted in that border, popping even more next to an errant Morning Glory and some White Wood Aster, and being visited by a butterfly.

Care and feeding – apparently not much needed!

According to American Meadows, which sells Zinnias, these annual don’t need the daily watering that I normally give to container-grown flowering annuals.

To grow Zinnias, make sure to plant them in an area that gets full sun (at least six hours per day). Although they prefer well-draining soil, they’ll grow almost anywhere as long as they have plenty of sun. They don’t need a lot of supplemental water in the summer months, which makes them a great candidate for hard-to-reach areas or for gardeners who are trying to conserve water. 

I suppose they still need to be fed, which I try to do twice-monthly for flowering annuals like the container-grown Petunias shown above.

Planning for 2022

Like most avid gardeners, I’ve been fantasizing all season about the improvements I plan to make next year. Because we obsessively do that, right?

Well! This little border in my front garden, which for so long held Arborvitaes (that were ugly) and Black-eyed Susans (that ran amok), now holds Russian Sage, Little Bluestem grasses and Sedum. I planted two clumps of ‘February Gold’ daffodils there but you know what else that spot needs, right? 

Fuchsia Zinnias like these babies! So when people approach my house they’ll see them and in the background, metal chairs in the same color.  But best of all, I’ll be wow’d with that color all season long.

Ah, 2022…

Why am I JUST Discovering Zinnias in Borders? originally appeared on GardenRant on October 24, 2021.

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“Do You Like Fall?”

My physical therapist recently asked the question as she was prodding and poking me this week, and it illicited an immediate positive reaction from the part of me that still works very well – my mouth. But it also put me in mind of another friend (a nursery owner) who can never wait to tell me how much she dislikes autumn. Though her posts on social media tell a very different story – as posts always do on social media – she sees autumn as cold, wet, dismal and dark. 

I shared these thoughts with my tormentor, and surprisingly she felt instant kinship with my friend. And I say surprisingly, because I have always considered my friend’s views on autumn to be thoroughly heretical – and if I’m being perfectly honest, somewhat capricious.   

The therapist confessed to her patient. She didn’t like the shrinking of days, she told me. The closing in of everything. The quiet finality of the season.

I laid there and thought about what I loved about autumn. For I do love it – spirit, mind and body. And I thought about it as I left the warmth of the office for an outside temperature that made me shiver; and I thought about it as my feet squelched through mud on the way to the car; and I thought about it as I drove home and recognized that the tulip poplars had divested themselves of three quarters of their leaves and that somehow it had become mid-October while I wasn’t watching.

My love for this season goes far beyond wafts of cinnamon and the draping of porches in what has become the tedious standardization of autumn. It is a recognition of the need for contraction and for rest. For my garden, for the creatures who inhabit it, and for myself. 

When I am ready, it allows me the freedom to do without the inevitable undo of rampant growth. It is a true celebration and conclusion of all that has come before – the awakening of the earth and its long Dionysian revels. It is as necessary as the parent who picks up her toddler and puts it to bed long before the toddler thinks he is ready.

 

 

In the many years of my city and suburban life, I was a willing participant in Autumn — adding my straw bales and cornstalks to neighborhoods that would certainly never suffer the actual, messy creation of such things in back gardens during the rest of the year.

I was joined by many others, who today move with even greater alacrity from tawny bales to evergreen wreaths, until the lack of commercially viable holidays make the bleakness of winter inescapable, and the long stretch to spring a dreary countdown.

No doubt expensive pumpkins await trash collection on a suburban curb, signifying a profound disconnect to autumn. So much for the “harvest.”

The longer I live rurally, the less I feel any need for the manifestation of the consumer season. The true fall season is immersive, deeply meaningful, and a lot less expensive.  And yet it still must be sought out. If I do not take time to appreciate autumn through morning walks, or snapping photos in the garden, or hunting mushrooms, I can easily be overwhelmed by all that must be done before that first frost, and how cold my hands are doing it.

Spring is not coy. It is an awakening. It is a joyful, positive, energizing season that transcends place and challenges the most melancholy to still find darkness.  And as such, it is not the exclusive privilege of the country mouse who stares across greening fields with her morning coffee in hand.

Step out of your apartment on the twenty-third floor (please use the stairs), and you’ll feel life returning to the gray, deadened streets of a city. The temperature is warmer, the restaurants are setting up tables outdoors, the street trees are blooming, and everyone is being a hell of a lot nicer to one another.

All is potential.  When I close my eyes and think back, I can remember the incredible feeling of exhilaration on the first fine day in March in the heart of whichever city I happened to be inhabiting at the time.  The contrast was heartbreakingly joyful.

But that is spring.

Conversely, autumn is a period of contraction. It is a season that, at core, is taking away from us. If growth, vigor, life…energy must end, we want a damn good reason to be okay with it. Otherwise, in a heavily urbanized existence it is simply cruelty. Thus, #harvest signs where there is no harvest. The cinnamon oil assaulting the senses from grocery store to boutique shop. The tasteful and the tacky – all to provide some level of meaning as to why we’re being punished.  Why we’re being put to bed.

The meaning and the joy are there without the superficialities of retail therapy, but I think finding them requires some measure of natural connection; and if you don’t live rurally, you must actively seek it out. It is present in the quiet corners of parks and river walks. It is present in moments spent tending balcony window boxes, and in those street trees, now throwing leaves on the cars parked below. It’s even present in the warming soups and stews we instinctively crave which connect us to a harvest we did not reap, but in which we may share.

Autumn is far more subtle in its joys than spring, and the worries of modern life can cunningly conceal those joys. It’s dark. I’m cold. There are wet, slimy, leaves everywhere, and I’ve got 6,459 tender plants to bring in.  How much is heating oil this year?!? If we don’t look for a true connection to autumn, and thus recognize its worth, we face winter even earlier than we should.  

Why must the season end? Why must there be autumn?  Mother Nature has spoken. Time for bed everyone. We might as well enjoy the story. – MW

“Do You Like Fall?” originally appeared on GardenRant on October 21, 2021.

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Weepers Are the Pedal Steel Guitar of the Garden

There’s nothing remotely like the pedal steel guitar. When played by a true artist, its caressing whine instantly collars even the most detached listener and unceremoniously shoves them down the five flights of stairs that lead directly to an emotional reckoning. 

A beautiful weeping tree adds the same affect to the garden. The instant we come upon one, an emotional chord is struck. In our hearts. In our souls. It’s pretty hardcore. The classic weeper, of course, is the weeping willow. There’s nothing like one draping over a lazy body of water.  

Weeping willow.

But there are some among us who argue that an old weeping beech is even better. Until someone else comes along and claims that it is, in fact, the purple weeping beech that is the holy grail of weeping trees. Until someone else shuts them both down with a solid evidence that, no, it is actually the weeping, purple, fastigiate beech that is proof that God exists.

Weeping beech.

Weeping purple beech.

Weeping purple fastigiate beech. ‘Purple Fountain.’

But they’re all wrong. 

Any weeping katsura is not only proof that God exists but will also answer any other hard questions you might have. ‘Amazing Grace’ weeping katsura does all that and also makes you rich.

Cercidihyllum japonicum ‘Pendula.’ Weeping katsura.

‘Amazing Grace’ weeping katsura at Spring Grove Cemetery and Arboretum.

A gaggle of geeks under the boughs of ‘Amazing Grace.’ Indeed.

But the truth is, there are a lot of great weeping trees that can bring tremendous emotional wonder to your garden. Unless you use a lot of them. Okay, you can line a stream with a hundred weeping willows and it will look awesome. Or pepper a road with a dozen weeping cherries. But even a pair of different weepers together is an outrage. And more than one of any in a normal backyard or garden suggests the homeowner needs help. Name one band with more than one pedal steel guitar player. What does that tell you? When something is already great, it’s easy for more to immediately become too much. 

Even when not in bloom, Prunus subhirtella pendula (weeping Higan’s cherry) brings drama.

But in bloom, Oh my!

A low grafted ‘Snow Fountain’ cherry dressing up a wall.

Can’t forget to included a conifer. Chamaecyparis nootkatensis ‘Pendula.’

 

Weepers Are the Pedal Steel Guitar of the Garden originally appeared on GardenRant on October 20, 2021.

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