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From the Archives
Archive for January, 2009
Contemplating a Tree-Ectomy
It’s not a bad tree. It’s not dying. It’s not a nuisance. It’s not the world’s most attractive specimen, and it tends to drop lots of little branches, but that’s hardly reason to cut it down.
It does, however, make my north-facing front garden even shadier than it already is.
I’ll admit that I’m being impractical here. It’s a perfectly healthy tree that has lovely yellow leaves in the fall. But I want to grow flowers, damn it. I’m tired of trying to get hostas, ferns, and bleeding hearts to thrive here. I want Joe Pye Weed. I want Russian Sage. I want to look out my dining room window and see something. And this birch is planted smack-dab in the center of the lawn.
I’m far from being a designer. I plop things in the soil, watch them for a season (sometimes less), dig them up, replant, and repeat. I’m a plant geek. I like a plant, I buy it (or seed for it) and in it goes. Eventually, everything works out. The idea of actually planning my garden is laughable. I do admire the discipline of those of you who draw up plans, or hire landscape designers to do it for you, and then follow through on those plans. I don’t know how you do it.
The thing is, I’m also a confessed treehugger. I feel guilty for even thinking about cutting this birch down. If it were diseased, or infested with carpenter ants or something, then I wouldn’t think twice. But the damn thing is healthy. It mocks me with its flush of buds each spring. Is it wrong to hope for lightning?
Anyway, I’m throwing it out to you guys. If this were your tree, in your north-facing yard, where sun was at a premium…..would you keep it?
14 comments
Gardenblogger Spring Fling ‘09
I promised myself that if/when there was a Spring Fling in Chicago, I’d go. It’s close, and I’ve always wanted to visit the Windy City. So it’s with a bit of a pout that I have to say that though the wonderful garden bloggers in Chicago have organized what is guaranteed to be a fabulous weekend, I can’t be there. The baby is due next month, and will only be a couple of months old at Spring Fling time. I’m just not comfortable travelling with a baby that young, or with taking off for a weekend, no matter how much fun the weekend looks to be.
However, you, my friends, should make every effort to get your butts to Chicago that weekend. You’ll get to hang out with your fellow garden bloggers, meet the people behind the blogs, and visit several wonderful public and private gardens. You’ll get to meet several of my favorite garden bloggers: Gina from My Skinny Garden, Mr. Brown Thumb, Mr. McGregor’s Daughter, and Carolyn Gail. I’m jealous just thinking about it.
The Chicago garden bloggers have set up a website about the event. Check it out, and keep checking because they are working on getting sponsorships (Proven Winners has already signed on as a sponsor—how great is that?) and getting group hotel rates for the garden bloggers.
Oh, and if you go, you have to promise to share your photos with me. One of these years, folks, I’ll make it to a Spring Fling. One of these years….
4 comments
Michigan’s “Garden for Growth” Program
I love my state. I love that Michiganders are, overall, a hard-working bunch who still know how to have a good time every once in a while. Raised in sub-zero winters and 90+ degree summers, we are forced to be tough and resourceful.
Take the foreclosure crisis. It is downright depressing how many homes are in foreclosure, whether in the city of Detroit or the more posh suburbs of Grosse Pointe, Bloomfield Hills, or Birmingham. I watched neighbors pack up their belongings yesterday, yet more victims of foreclosure.
In February of last year, Michigan had the highest foreclosure rates in the nation. Now, we rank 7th in the country as our broken economy burdens traditionally well-to-do states such as California and Colorado.
But back to that resourcefulness. Rather than let these abandoned and foreclosed lots sit empty, that state of Michigan has cataloged them and made them available for either individuals or groups to garden on. It’s called the “Garden for Growth” program, and I have more details in my Detroit Gardening Examiner column today.
As I mentioned in the column, the database lists two properties right in my own hometown of Harper Woods. Harper Woods is tiny. You can ride your bike from one end to the other and not even break a sweat. Yet I can look out my door and see the signs popping up daily: for sale signs, rental signs, auction signs. I’m glad that the state is trying to make something useful out of this mess. It shows that not only does someone in state government realize that vacancy leads to blight, but that encouraging sustainable living in these harsh times is necessary.
Does your state or county offer a program like this? If it has, have you taken advantage of it?
4 comments
My Country, My President
Here we are. This is the day millions of us, around the world, have been waiting for for most of the last eight years. I’ve been glued to CNN, Huffington Post, and my local paper. Today, I read a column by Detroit Free Press columnist Mitch Albom, in which he asks “what are we so happy about?” Why does this change of power feel like one gigantic party? Tomorrow, we’ll still be at war. People will still be losing their jobs, and their homes. Children in Detroit and across the nation will still be going to bed hungry. The stock market and the Middle East can hardly be expected to start cooperating, just because we’ve elected this man with a funny name who promised change.
Is it the historical nature of Obama’s presidency? Sure. The magnitude of what has happened, my country electing a black man to the highest office (when a mere half-century or so ago, we still had a segregated South) is breathtaking. But it’s more than that.
Is it the whole notion of hope, and change, that Obama has promised us? That’s certainly part of it. I’m sure you’d be hard-pressed to find someone who doesn’t realize that we need to make some radical, drastic changes in this country, from the way we manage our finances to the way we grow our food. Change is good, and necessary. Hope is important. Bill Clinton ran on hope, if you recall. I didn’t feel this overwhelming sense of optimism, even then.
No, it’s something more. Obama has said, time and time again, that our challenges can be met, that we can change our world, but that we must take an active part in that change. We can not sit back and wait for change to happen. We need to make it happen. “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.”
How empowering is that sentiment, when for the last eight years our government has ignored us, ridiculed our protests, questioned our patriotism, and bled us dry so that special interests could line their pockets?
How inspiring is it, to realize that we do, in fact, have a government of, by, and for the people?
How amazing is it to feel that your voice is being heard, that you have a stake in your country, and that working together, we can accomplish anything?
That’s what this inauguration means to me. We the people are present in our government again. May we have the sense to never let our government shut us out again.
In that spirit, here is, for me, the most poignant moment from the “We Are One” inaugural concert. I get chills every time I watch this clip:
13 comments
January Bloom Day
It’s January, and I have something blooming. Thank God for houseplants!
My single bloom this absolutely frigid Bloom Day is from a Primula that my husband brought home for me on a whim the other day. It is so bright and cheerful, I can’t help but feel a little more chipper when I’m watering or deadheading it. Behind the primula is Peperomia ‘Ruffles,’ which I bought mainly because Peperomia is one of the few houseplants I haven’t managed to kill.
To see more great Bloom Day posts, visit Carol over at May Dreams Gardens. What’s blooming in your (indoor or outdoor) garden today?
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