A Gardening Honeymoon by guest blogger Jeanette Ankoma-Sey

Honeymoon, noun: period of enthusiasm or goodwill.

As a gardener and designer, when we moved into our first home I had mixed feelings about starting my garden with my husband. It was August of 2007; it was a 100 sizzling degrees and when we pulled up to the corner unit we were surprised at the size of the yard that came with this tiny 1950's duplex. Yes, we knew the size and had walked the yard before we bought the house.  Living in an apartment with a shady balcony for 5 plus years, we always thought just a little more space would be nice, just a little bit more . . . So we committed to 4500 square feet of southern exposure (think zone 8b) and a wickedly sloping yard that begged for screening, greening, living. I warned my husband about the undertaking and ultimately we had no idea where to start with getting some green (and blues, oranges, pinks, purples) in our yard.

We are still miles away from having my yard the way I dream it could be. I envision a terraced heaven with a space to do yoga in the privacy of my lawn, amongst plenty of planted beds and garden rooms of sweet sounds, sights, tastes, and smells. Miles away I say.... BUT here is how we and a few clever plant/designer friends have fared with the budget garden challenge.

Seed Saving: A September Ritual that is Good for the Planet and your Soul

Late September is an ideal time to think about next year’s garden.  Collecting and saving seeds might be the world’s most ancient garden activity, and one of the most rewarding.  Why should you consider saving seeds?  Especially when there are so many great seed companies available?

First, it’s insanely economical.   Remember the sticker shock you got in spring at your local nursery when you HAD TO HAVE those 12 new plants?  Collecting and saving seeds cost you almost nothing.  Not only is it cheap, but it’s good for the earth.  Why?

Propagating plants from collected seed preserves the genetic diversity of open pollinated plants.  Most of the plants you buy in a nursery are propagated by some means of asexual reproduction, often through techniques like tissue culture.  While asexual reproduction guarantees you the same ornamental characteristics of the plant’s parent, all of the offspring are genetic clones of the parent.  In nature, the vast majority of flowering plants develop seeds by being pollinated openly by insects.  This means each pollinated plants gets mixed with the genetic material of another plant close by, resulting in more genetic variation.  More genetic variation creates new strains of plants that are often tougher and more resilient than their parents. 

Paper envelopes available here.

Heirloom fruits and vegetables are all the rage these days, and for good reason.  Most of the great heirlooms were the result of open pollination.  Plants that reproduce through natural means tend to adapt to local conditions over time and evolve as reliable performers.  Over the last 100 years, we’ve lost literally thousands of varieties of vegetables and flowers due to a reliance on commercial hybrid seed.  Overuse of hybrids and asexual reproduction has eroded the gene pool.  Collecting and saving your own seeds creates stronger, healthier, and more genetically diverse plants.

First time seed savers may want to collect from species that are easy to sow.  Most annuals and some perennials such as zinnias, basil, arugula, chives, borage, catnip, dill, parsley, mint, monarda, lemon balm, summer savory, and anise hyssop are easy to collect and sow again the in spring.  As you get the hang of seed collecting, try more challenging plants. 

Here are some tips for seed saving in your garden:

1. Understand the plant’s anatomy: 

Each plant has evolved remarkable techniques for developing and dispersing seed.  The first time I tried to collect seeds from my Acanthus hungaricus, I was rudely alerted to the fact that Acanthus actually catapult their seed through the air.  When touched, the dried fruits exploded from tension of it members and literally shot seeds across the yard.  I lost most of the seeds.  After doing some research, I learned how to put a bag over the dried fruits before picking them.    Some plants seeds are so small, they must be shaken in a paper bag.  Each plant is unique and learning their reproductive strategies is an entirely fascinating journey.  Do a little research first.

2.  Find out if your plant sterile:

If your plant originated from a nursery, it may produce sterile seeds.  Corporations are producing cultivars that cannot be reproduced (to protect their patent and profits).  Many popular cultivars can only be reproduced asexually.  Check the internet to see if the species and cultivar of your plant is able to seed.

3.  Make sure the seeds are ready to harvest: 

If the flower or fruit of the plant is still green or wet, it’s probably too early to harvest.  After the flowers fade and start to turn brown, it’s time to cut and dry the seeds.  It will probably take another few weeks of drying before the seed is ready to store.  Wet seeds can create fungus and other undesirable diseases.

4.  Dry the seeds in a dark, well-ventilated area:  Bright sunlight can actually kill a seed, and too damp an area spreads fungus.

5. Sift seeds through a sieve or colander: This helps to remove plant fragments from the seed.

6.  Use paper envelopes, not plastic:  Paper allows for a modest amount of transpiration, whereas plastic holds moisture. 

7. Label your packet: Remember to write the name of the plant, where and how you collected it, and the date.  This will prove entirely valuable a year or two down the road. 

To learn more about seed saving, check out these links:

www.uga.edu/ebl/ssl/about/

www.seedsavers.org



Fruit City and the Joys of Foraging

Why settle for fruit grown in Brazil or Chile when you can walk down the block and pick your own ripe darling?  Recently, I've stumbled onto a couple of delightful websites dedicated to mapping or networking all of the fruit grown in cities.  These sites focus on fruit grown in public spaces, or on private lots where the owners don't want the excess fruit.  My favorite is Fruit City (http://www.fruitcity.co.uk/).  Fruit City provides a "living and growing map" of all the fruit tree and vines in public spaces in London. The site has an interactive map that provides directions to the closest apple, pear, or even hardy kiwi growing in London's public spaces.  If you discover a new foragable jewel, then users can update the map themselves.

Another site, City Fruit (http://cityfruit.org/) is a developing non-profit that works with Seattle neighborhoods to help residential tree owners grow and harvest fruit and share what they don't need. Since July 2009, City Fruit has harvested over 4800 pounds of pears, plums, apples, and grapes from 50 home and donated them to food banks, senior housing, and daycare centers.  The video below is one of their advertisements.

[Or click the link here if the video is not displaying for you.]

Of course, as an amateur forager myself, the thought of mapping and alerting the rest of the world to my treasured hotspots spoils some of the joy of discovering these trees in the first place.  It's bad enough to compete with the jays and starlings for the pound of two of delicious serviceberries I harvest every June.  Now I have to share with a bunch of foraging newbies?  What's worse, Fruit City even suggests foraging paraphernalia like the fruit collecting basket-back, a brilliant yet ridiculous contraption that provides consumer apparel for urban foragers. 

In my less stingy moments, I realize that there's probably enough for everyone.  I truly think more people should engage with the primal joys of discovering, harvesting, and eating wild foods.  Even my friends who are totally disinterested in nature ask a dozen questions when they see me swipe a handful of obscure berries from a tree and pop them in my mouth.  Their interest signals more than mere curiosity; it is an expression of a deeper desire, a primal urge to engage in the world's oldest occupation. 

For most of human history, we have relied on wild foods to feed us.  Of course, it's not practical for us to rely solely on wild foods; however, the act of foraging reminds us that we are not fed by the supermarket.  Foraging connects us to the sun, the soil, and the seasons. When we forage, we no longer just observe nature--as one might in a National Park--but we participate in the event of nature.  To forage is to return to our first role as ecological beings, and understand our connection with the splendid mosaic of life. 

So if you're a homeowner, plant a fruiting tree or vine.  If you're a designer or landscape architect, consider adding fruiting trees, shrubs, and vines to public spaces.  Nothing grounds you in the cycles of nature like harvesting your own food.  It is the single most human engagment I know.

SNEAK PEAK: In the next upcoming blog, I feature a foragable fruit and gorgeous native plant whose fruit has the single highest antioxidant levels of any measured plant to date.  It is actually been shown to inhibit weight gain.  Stop by the site later this week to find out.

Groundbreakers: The Garden Heard Round the World

It was the garden heard round the world. Beth Chatto’s garden in Essex, England, is perhaps the single most influential garden of the last century. The rather modest gardener with a unique flair for underappreciated plants stirred the waters of British gardening, and as a result, sent ripples throughout the world. Begun in 1960 on a farm property that was a wasteland of "starved gravel and soggy bog,” Beth Chatto transformed the site by creating a string of contrasting yet complementary gardens. Chatto embraced the site’s difficult features and matched plants to fit the inhospitable terrain.

Beth Chatto is the grand dame of English gardeners, the reigning heir of William Robinson, Gertrude Jekyll, and painter-gardener Sir Cedris Morris. Though not the first naturalistic gardener, Chatto nonetheless is the pioneer—the first garden structuralist—who blazed the way for brilliant plantsmen like Dan Pearson and Piet Oudolf. “Success depends on knowledge of plant provenance and on an understanding of natural plant associations,” writes Chatto in her book The Dry Garden. Chatto credits her late husband, horticulturist, and farmer for creating an interest in natural plant associations. Andrew spent his life studying where garden plants originated. Her husband’s passion for ecological patterns stirred a curiosity in Beth that would fuel her most daring garden experiment.

Her most famous and influential garden is the Gravel Garden. Begun in 1991 as a horticultural experiment, the Gravel Garden was converted from a former parking lot. Chatto was inspired by hikes she and her good friend, the legendary Great Dixter gardener Christopher Lloyd, took through various countries. During these walks, Chatto would notice how native plants would miraculously thrive in the harshest conditions, from salt-crusted sand dunes to wind-battered alpine rockeries. Inspired by the “miracle of growing plants,” Chatto set home determined to prevail with her experiment. The site was a heavily compacted parking area that consisted mostly of yellow gravel that went twenty feet deep. Chatto carefully prepared the soil (including subsoiling and several homemade blends of compost), cut in beds by using a hose to lay them out, and selected plants to fit the harsh conditions.

The most revolutionary part of the Gravel Garden is that it has never once been artificially watered. This is especially remarkable when you consider how ornamental and colorful the garden is year-round. The Gravel Garden is not a dry meadow or succulent garden, but a richly-layered perennial garden. This feat is doubly impressive considering that Essex is perhaps the driest corner in all of England.

Of course, Chatto’s concept garden would not have been a success had it not been stunningly beautiful. Chatto began her career arranging flowers, and it is her flair for arranging boldly structural plants in strikingly original combinations that accounts for her critical acclaim. As a founding member of the Colchester Flower Club, Chatto’s experience arranging plants in vases shows itself in her gardens. Chatto structures the garden with tall vertical plants like verbascum, acanthus, and foxgloves (“church spires in my village”); then artfully creates mass with textural filler plants like eryngium, euphorbia, or santolina; finally, she punches through the texture with moments of startling contrast—a luminous Stipa pulcherrima—resolving the tension between the architectural lines and the soft mass.

Chatto’s international fame came as a result of winning medals at the Superbowl of British gardening, the Chelsea Flower Show. Chatto won her first medal in 1976 and went on to win ten more gold medals during subsequent years. The show attracts thousands of visitors a year, and her unusual yet seductive combinations launched Chatto as an international garden figure. Her ability to mix traditional garden flowers like delphiniums and roses with weedy thistles, grasses, and structural seedheads gave her designs an edge and freshness that few could match. Chatto went on to publish several books, including The Dry Garden and The Damp Garden, that became instant garden classics.

Beth Chatto is widely celebrated for being one of the first ecological gardeners. But she describes her philosophy of pairing the right plants to the right habitat as nothing more than common sense. While her Gravel Garden rightfully deserves the attention it has received for its sustainable approach, it is her artistry in plant combination and natural association that makes her a Groundbreaker. Chatto orchestrates an international ensemble of plants into combinations that have the same resonance and harmony of a native palette. Like no one else before, Chatto understands form, color, and texture not as abstract design principles, but as an extension of a particular place.

For Chatto, all of the acclaim and attention her garden has received is missing the point. "Our time is so ephemeral, and no one can say how long any garden will last,” says Chatto, now 87 years old. “It is being part of that continuous chain, passing on plants and the love of plants from generation to generation, that matters."

Sources:

The Dry Garden, Beth Chatto and Steven Wooster 2001.

“Beth Chatto Exhibition: A Revoutionary Revisited.” Telegraph. 13 November 2008.

All photos by Steven Wooster.