A river runs through it, finally, almost

I posted a couple of years ago on this topic and didn’t realize quite how aspirational putting in a dry river bed proved to be. Never fear, it is still aspirational. This means I haven’t finished yet, but “aspirational” sounds so magazine editor I just can’t resist. “Unfinished project” sounds more Alaskan though, so it’s a toss up.

1. Now every river in Alaska need some salmon. If I have a trademark (besides inserting (unnecessary) parentheticals in my blog posts or having my hair done a brand new color every 6 months) it is my rusty salmon. So clearly they are included in a dry river bed.

2. How about some driftwood? Luckily Alaska has about as much coastline as a small continent, so plenty of places to harvest that. Currently acquisitions are from the mudflats behind the Kincaid Park chalet. Yes, there were inquisitive looks as I stumped up the paved trail with a twenty foot hunk of battered tree on my shoulder. To say nothing of the smaller pieces shoved willy nilly under my other arm. Luckily driftwood is very light weight. One observer actually had the temerity to laugh when a very long piece would not quite fit into the back of the truck. Phooey!

3. Rocks. Must not forget the rocks. Gravel river beds are as Alaskan as blue tarps, moose, and junked automobiles in the front yard. The autumn of 2012 saw the delivery of 13 tons of gravel to the Last Frontier Garden. And since my garden motto has been reduced to “go big or go home” we are having another 12 tons delivered next week. As we have no excavator handy, my back is starting some anticipatory twinges for the shovel work.

Also in this category are large rocks. Back twinges from shoveling gravel graduate to spasms with a sure promise of shooting pains. I don’t rule out groans and grunts when dealing with the small boulder size. My two best friends: a long pry bar and an electric heating pad for when it’s all over. Also useful: family members built like NFL linebackers with about 300 pounds of pure muscle. I’m still looking for a few on Craigslist.

4. Alaska is home to a bazillion kinds of grasses and grass allies. I once wrote a (slightly) technical article on the subject for the Alaska Master Gardeners, Anchorage home page (read it here), but I am too lazy to consult it for the actual number of grasses in this 49th state. Suffice to say, there are not may rivers in Alaska without grass waving around nearby.

I didn’t want the river to look too fancy (Alaska is not fancy in any way), if that makes sense, so no variegated grass. You’ll pardon me a moment while I mop up my tears, for variegated grasses were so beautiful and useful in my last garden it nearly breaks my heart not to use them liberally in the dry riverbed. Must. Be. Strong. I guess the yellow and chartreuse leaved grasses are out under the “fancy” rule, too. This just sounds no fun anymore.

Yet I persevere and come up with the (apparently ubiquitous in the Lower 48, but still not well enough known in Alaska) standby: Calamagrostis x acutiflora ‘Karl Foerster.’ I didn’t know this plant was as common as Potentilla or Pelargonium until a national gardening magazine informed me of the fact, having the gall to write “overused”. I generally like the aforementioned publication, so instead of firing off a heated letter to the editor, I just imitated my 12 year old and said, “whatever.” It helps somewhat.

Calamagrostis brachytricha was chosen to keep it’s taller and stiffer cousin company in the river. Not a “look a me” type plant, but a good mingler and not fancy. Alas.

5. Structure, woman! What are you going to look at when it snows? Besides the driftwood, big rocks, and rusty fish. So in go a couple of Physocarpus opulifolius ‘Center Glow’. Don’t judge me. I have to deal with moose, bears, and a snow blower in the unfenced front yard so sacrifices must be made. Remember, no fancy.

6. And the piece de resistance will be a Pinus aristata, the sublime bristlecone pine. I left a small 3 foot specimen at my last garden and haven’t forgotten it. Tragically for my wallet, a small specimen would look ridiculously out of scale next to the tall front facade of my house. So a bigger chap will be necessary and very pricey. I’m taller than the 5-foot, $700 specimen balled and burlapped at the tree lot, but the cost of an 8-footer might put me behind on the mortgage payment for a couple of months. Perhaps I should print up my standard “new garden” flier for the neighbors: Looks dumb now, but wait 10 years!

All this dry riverbed business at my place was started because we had some drainage problems that required a massive excavation and French drain installation in front of the house. Since some of the turf grass was demolished for that, it seemed the perfect excuse to put in my first garden at our new house. It took three years, but now I feel more legitimate. The Last Frontier Garden has a garden. Woohoo!

 

What is part of a dry river bed in your area landscapes?

We all want this plant

The holy grail of the plant world, the most desired, coveted, and beloved in all the Kingdom Plantae is __________.  What was that?  You thought I would tell you?  I wouldn’t presume to know what your favorite is and surely every gardener has a different one!

After moaning about my upcoming move last week, and the accompanying feelings of desolation, isolation, and consternation that go with leaving a garden behind, I have decided to look ahead.  Momentarily at least.  The houses we’ve considered are what I like to term “garden challenged,” meaning no garden.  I don’t count a lilac bush and a few scrawny looking pansies as a garden.  So what would be the first thing I would plant?

“First” sort of implies essential, does it not?  Something you cannot live without another day…like the internet, Velcro, Pepper Jack cheese, or supportive undergarments.  Since installing an entire garden in one season is not in the time/funds budget, I’ll have to settle for just one selection.  No doubt the rest of my time will be spent painting walls, tiling floors, or ripping out a Mary Kay pink Jacuzzi tub. 

What are the qualities of something essential?  Useful, beautiful, sturdy, hardy, low-maintenance…well, you get the idea.  And so, with much thought and no further ado, the first plant to transform my new lawn (this is Alaska, yards are almost always a lawn) to a garden will be: Pinus aristata, the bristlecone pine.  It’s a small specimen tree, not very romantic but useful as a diversion or focal point if there are lots of blue tarps, garbage cans, or junk vehicles around.  I’m thinking with a skirting of Alopecurus pratensis ‘Variegatus’, golden foxtail grass, it would be simple, eye-catching, and satisfying even in winter.  And if I am to be removing a giant pink tub and ripping up carpet, I won’t have time for much else.

What would be the first/essential plant you would put in a new garden with a blank slate?

If a clown had a garden

File this under unnatural fears.  The clown part, especially.  I don’t know precisely what it is, whether it be the deathly-white face, big red nose, or multi-hued wig, but something about clowns triggers a primal fear in me.  I avoid them at all costs.  Fortunately, clowns don’t dig Alaska, so I don’t often encounter them.  Rumor has it they frequent birthday parties of unfortunate children, but in all my years of party attendance, both willing and unwilling, I have never seen one.  I hear the big cities are plagued with their less flamboyant cousins, the mimes, but I can’t say for sure. 

If you are currently considering revenge of some kind, do consider a hot tip: tell your victim to visit this search on clown pictures, which turned up a mere 3,980,000 results.  Not for the faint of heart.  I’m almost positive there is a movie genre devoted to clown horror (filed away next to dental horror) so I know I’m not the only one that gets freaked out by painted faces wearing day-glow polyester hair.

I can even buy this handy dandy book to overcome my coulrophobia, or fear of clowns.  Yes, it’s so prevalent, there is a real fancy-sounding term for it.  Egad. 

Musing on clown behavior, something I try not to do by the way, has led me consider if there are plants ideally suited to them.  I’m not thinking obnoxious behavior necessarily, but I am reminded of the old clown gag where too many clowns fit in one tiny car.  I guess I can be clownish in the garden, ramming things in cheek-by-jowl until there are so many things in such a small space that it’s a fight to the death for the poor things, a horticultural “Lord of the Flies” if you will.  Some actual plants with clown names include Clown fig (Ficus aspera), Clown orchid, Hibiscus ‘Clown’, and Amaryllis ‘Clown’.  My two bits: a clown friendly garden would include bold colors, plants that “leave a mark,” and plants that are out of scale (large leaves or microscopic plants). 

Clowns are all about color.  When I think “clown”, I don’t think of pastel or muted shades.  Clowns are primary color loving, loud and proud, just think of a box of crayons.  I realize this is a touchy subject, for what is the high and Holy Grail of the plant world for some is the chewing gum on the bottom of the shoe for others, for both color and combination thereof.  And genus too, I suppose.   Some random ideas in this department: Gladiolus, Gaillardia (the bright red and gold one, I just can’t get myself to like it, no matter how I try), white daisies (don’t ask me why), and gerbera daisies.  Please feel free to add (or subtract) from this list.

Take a sniff, I dare you…. 

So what does a clown love in a flower?  I think clowns would really love lilies: any flower that makes a perfectly reasonable person look like a fool has got to be on the list.  Think of the clown gag involving the lapel-mounted flower.  As the sucker goes in for a sniff, the clown squeezes the magic button and “squirt,” the sniffer gets a shot of water in the eye.  I suppose the horticultural equivalent of the lapel squirt is sniffing a lily and ending up with pollen on your snoot.  Been there, done that.  Pollen is one of those really-difficult-to-remove-from-anything-but-a-bee type substances, ranking right up there with red wine, dog urine, and grass as far as things you don’t want to get on Aunt Clara’s white couch.  If not lilies, then Euphorbia.  The sap really does cause blistering (at least on my face, it did).  Those freaky horror-type clowns would get a chuckle out of my discomfort.

I can’t think of the last time I saw a clown tastefully dressed in clothes, let alone shoes, in the proper size.  It just isn’t done.  So a clown garden would be full of big, over-sized flowers and plants.  That, or teeny, weenie, tiny plants.  Scale be darned.  Many (admittedly fantastic) tropicals are on the short clown-approved list: Colocasia, Musa, Alocasia, Hedychium, and we mustn’t forget Zantedeschia.  I guess alpines and dwarf conifers would be on the list, too.  I keep coming back to Gerber daisies, but maybe it’s just a mental block.

So to sum up this silly bit of prose (which may in fact be the dumbest thing I’ve written in a long time), many of us garden in a distinctive style, whether it be prairie, cottage, formal, New Wave, minimalist, what have you.  Most styles are characterized by certain types of plants so I think “clown” is a legitimate design category.  Clowns are supposed to make people laugh, right?  I probably could stand to laugh more often, so maybe I’ll convert my minimalist garden into a clown garden.  (That was a joke.) 

Any clown lovers out there?  Any clowning around in your garden?

Planning for winter beauty

With the onset of another Alaskan winter and a dusting of the white stuff, some gardeners go into hibernation.  Others head to Hawaii or Arizona.  Others still, resign themselves to the inevitable and decide to enjoy the austere beauty that we call the winter landscape.  It's not challenging to find grandeur in the wilds of Alaska, but is any of this beauty to be found in your garden?  If you have not noticed it before, perhaps some adjustment is called for. 

Some are just a bit too enthusiastic with fall clean up.  Picture a mixture of Paul Bunyan and Mary Poppins.  Everything must be spit-spot and the hand pruners are slicing away vigorously for three days straight.  The chores are not done until every perennial is cut to the nubbins and every annual yanked out.  For many years my own garden looked this way in late autumn.  After the big cleanup, a heating pad and pain meds, I would look resentfully at the cause of so much pain and effort and my thoughts would be something along the lines of "good riddance."  I am softening my views, it seems.  Increased demands on my time prevented a perfectly clean sweep one autumn and that winter I noticed something I had not in years past.  My garden was interesting.  Even in winter.   

I'm not suggesting that a Paul Bunyan-type gardener go cold turkey.  Start slow if you like.  Increased attention is being paid to perennials that shine in the fall.  Perhaps those might be left intact.  What about plants with interesting seedheads or very woody, rigid stems that might make it through a winter?  Do I even need to mention ornamental grasses?  Of course I do.  If you have them, leave them intact through the winter (Phalaris pictured above).  What about your container plants?  I used to pluck each one out and fling the whole bit on the compost pile every fall like clockwork.  With my new combination of insight and laziness, I leave many plants in the containers (example below).  I might as well, they are going to die anyway.  I'd rather enjoy the show.

Trees add a lot of interest to the winter landscape.  Those blessed with established, healthy trees can just enjoy the show.  When it comes to planting a new tree, a person with a small yard needs to be especially choosy, but even those with serious acreage need to decide carefully when it comes to placement near the home.  Evergreen trees, like spruces and pines, add bulk and presence.  They are great background plants in summer that can come to the foreground after all the deciduous trees lose their leaves.  Some varieties have needles that turn colors in fall or winter for increased interest.  Deciduous trees are also attractive in their own way without their leaves.  Some varieties have attractive bark, like birches (pictured below), that can be featured with a little planning, others have brightly colored berries or fruit.  Some shrubs also have interesting bark or berries for winter, like Physocarpus (ninebark) or Viburnum.  They are especially valuable in small yards or near the house, where you don't want some thirty foot evergreen tree blocking the little bit of (precious) winter light that comes into the home.

Ah, what to say about hardscape (in other words, everything but the plants themselves) in the winter garden?  A dusting of snow can conceal many things but it can be revealing, too.  How is your space divided?  Rocks, timbers, concrete, plastic, or metal.  Is the overall shape pleasing, jarring, satisfying?  A straight line (like a path to the front door) can be very agreeable, but so can a gentle curve (like a path through the garden).  When covered in a thin layer of snow, the outline can be discerned.  Textures come into play: smooth, like concrete, versus rough, like gravel.  Directionality is a feature: vertical, like a copper trellis, versus horizontal, like a raised planter.  All these things can add appeal or interest to a garden in winter.

One more thing that can be very interesting in the winter landscape: land contours.  Slopes, inclines, knolls, rises, mounds, or hills.  All wonderful for effect.  And what effects they can be: humor, awe, mystery, drama.  It reminds me an instance when I was completely re-designing the front yard a few years ago and was trying to contour a small rise for privacy.  I imagined a tree or two planted on it and a few shrubs would shelter the path to my front door very nicely.  A neighbor thought I was making a burial mound.  Ha, ha.  Obviously my little contour was a touch too suggestive.  I pursed my lips and set about smoothing the edges out a bit.

So to conclude, there are many different ways to add interest to the garden in winter.  Take stock of your space and see if plants, hardscaping, and land contours might aid you in achieving an effect worth looking at in the cold months.  It's the next best thing to wintering in Hawaii.

Cool landscaping around town: part 1

I used to despair of ever seeing really interesting commerical landscape design in Alaska.  Instead of interesting, imaginitive, or evocative landscaping, most of the stuff seemed to be gas station design on a grander scale.  Not so in the last few years.  I have been pleasantly suprised by some recent designs, one of which I will share today (blurry drive-by photo of west side, below).

When I first noticed the landscaping at 188 Northern Lights, a recently completed office building in midtown Anchorage, I just about ran up onto the curb with the car.  There were boulders set into the sidewalk (on the north side), interspersed with plantings.  And the plantings!  Unusual choices for the 49th state.  Wow.  I'd like to see more thoughtful designs like this.  Planting tall, narrow varieties (to avoid the maintenance nightmare of trying to wack things back down and into size in a tight urban space) was smart.  Also, ornamental grasses were utilized, one of my favorite groups of plants.  The inflorescences were left to stand over the winter.  That flat out stunned me.  I thought for sure a "clean-up crew" would cut everything back, thus ensuring minimal winter interest.  From my observations, onamental grasses are still unusual in residential landscapes up here, but in commercial landscapes, there are almost non-existent.  

The plantings at this building are (my best guess): Calamagrostis x acutiflora 'Overdam', Rosa glauca, Populus tremula 'Erecta', and Hemerocallis 'Stella D'Oro'.  I realize many people think daylilies are gas station plants, but they are still unusual in Alaska.  In the interest of full disclosure, there is a small patch of turfgrass on the south side of the building.  That disappointed me a bit.  As all Alaska gardeners know, the southern exposure is a treasured piece of real estate.  However, the rest of the design is smashing so I can overlook one generic choice.  Drive by and enjoy it some time (the northwest corner is pictured below).

Hopefully, this is the start of a trend in commercial landscape design here in Anchorage.  I'd call it the "Making an Effort" trend.  Hope springs eternal, right?

Presentation

Does 35 degrees F sound cold?  If you are an Alaskan and it's October 20, the answer is "no."  However, I am tempted and spoiled by our unseasonable long and mild fall, to reply "yes."  It seems too early to be wandering around the house with a blanket draped around my shoulders, but alas, that is the case today.  I even had to brew up my first batch of hot chocolate of the season: caramel with a shot of cream.  Served in a Haviland Limoges porcelain cup with saucer (sounds very la-de-da but I purchased it for a song at a thrift store auction).  Something about the presentation just makes the cocoa taste better, more satisfying.  I feel like I'm indulging myself, and in today's hectic world, by taking a moment for myself and enjoying something tasty served in something beautiful, I sure am.

Presentation in the garden, have you thought about it?  What is the first thing a visitor to your garden will see, and what draws the eye?  Stand back from your home and try to observe what stands out.  I often do this in the street or ditch across the way (yes, I do check for traffic).  I take pictures from this perspective, and I have learned to do this for each season (see pictures).  The strengths and eyesores of autumn might be different than those of spring.  If you are an Alaskan, you sure aren't doing any gardening in the winter, so why not take notes and review the pictures you have taken at that time? 

Many of the newer lots here in Anchorage are of smallish size, rather close together, and have few trees for privacy, so an example of notes might be something like: evergreen tree to block view of automobile and snowmachine graveyard, deciduous tree to block view of neighbors riverboat that only shows up in summer, brightly colored shrubbery to divert attention from garbage cans/Dumpster, a brown tarp for the convertible instead of a blue one for next year, widen the path to the front door, etc.

My own notes include: install "moose repelling" pinwheels, plant decidous tree where Pinus flexilis 'Vanderwolf's Pyramid' is now ailing, rip out declining Cladrastis lutea 'Rosea' and plant Malus 'Prairiefire', level gravel walkway, touch up stain on fencing and backyard deck, plant more bulbs next fall.  That's just for starters off the top of my head.  A sobering thought indeed. 

Another good reason to be taking mental stock of the "to do" list for improving yard/home presentation in winter: it takes me that long to rest up mentally and physically for all the exertion that lies ahead.  Ugh.

Gas Station Plants: Yes You Can!

Savvy gardeners often malign the common, everyday shrubs that find their way into spreads at big box stores and service stations.  I guess if anyone can grow it, no one needs to coddle it, and it never stops blooming, there is no attraction.  We like a project.  

With this in mind I have developed a perverse streak.  I will find a planting that makes easy-going, forever-blooming Potentilla look fabulous.  I will, I will.

Not too bad, eh?  I snapped this one today (Achillea 'Paprika' with faded red blossoms, Potentilla 'Abbottswood', and the cute little grass, Arrhenatherum elatius bulbosum 'Variegatum').  Now if I can just find the inspiration to place the gold flowering one languishing in my holding bed....

Musical chairs

The picture of Actinidia kolomikta (hardy kiwi vine) below is the after shot in a 3-year game of musical chairs in the garden. When I first started gardening, every time I moved a plant, I would dwell on the idea that I had made a mistake. Now that I have moved, oh, say every other tree, shrub, and perennial in my yard about 3 times, I have come to a few practical conclusions.

Conclusion one: sketching things out, even in a very rough bubble-looking form of where, what, and how you want things to look, helps minimize future digging games. If you know you would like a patio in a certain area and you block it out in a sketch, you most likely wouldn't plant a grove of spruce trees in that spot by mistake. Get out those pencils and paper, class!

Conclusion two: read the tag for size (please, please!). This is most often a problem with trees. If that "cute as a button" little 5-foot tree you planted 10 feet off the front door of the house gets to be a 30-foot wide behemoth, goodbye all sunlight in the front room. And any visitors for that matter. How could they get to the front door?

In general, I find the width measurements more important than the height measurements for trees and shrubs. Unless you are planting under a utility line. Also, I don't plant any trees closer than 20 feet to my house at a minimum (and these are usually narrow or dwarf varieties that won't eat up space). Many of the house lots in developed now in Anchorage are relatively small, so I often recommend varieties that don't get very wide. One tree that is tall and narrow, for those tight spaces, is Populous tremula 'Erecta' (which says on the tag 40' x 6'). Yeah, I know, it's a poplar. But you can't get much narrower than that in a tree up here. Other small trees include some of the crabapples (Malus spp.), serviceberries (Amelanchier spp.), and some mountain ash, such as Sorbus decora. Go ahead, snoop around, visit nurseries, read magazines, surf online. Find something that fits and will still fit in ten years or twenty.

Conclusion three: read the tag for cultural requirements! Does it like sun? shade? wet soils? being trampled by the neighborhood children? Putting the plant in a place it will be healthy also minimizes those annoying musical chairs games.

Conclusion four: even if you have planned for every contingency, requirement, and eye appeal, you may decide you just don't like that plant in that place. Don't feel too bad. Mixing things up occasionally keeps the garden fresh and interesting, so go ahead and plan your moving projects now. When spring fever hits, you'll know where to dig.

Disclaimer: If the plant you want to move (or remove) could possibly fall onto your neighbor's yard, your home, overhead wires (in other words, if it's anything bigger than say, 8 feet), an arborist would probably be a better option than a DIY project.

The before musical chairs picture, a mishmash of Rosa 'William Baffin', Rosa 'Pole Star', and Actinidia kolomikta, all fighting for vertical space against the house. What a mess. Nothing a little digging won't fix, though. If you decide you are willing to part with plants you have dug up, consider sharing with a friend or neighbor (or put them on Alaskaslist). These days, I prefer to think of moving plants around as an opportunity (so long as my back holds up). So should you.