Mayors Landscape Awards

I was honored to receive Second Place (Region 1) for Single Residential Landscapes from the venerable Chicago Mayor's Landscape Awards for 2011.

Here's the essay I submitted with the application (regular readers will recognize places where I plagiarized myself!)

I grew my garden in lockstep with my family. We moved in to a vast expanse of grass in 1986 (actually a vast expanse of snow, since it was December).

For a while the garden grew with the family-- add a child, add a flower bed. As the children grew in complexity so did the garden, adding vegetables, trees, more flowers, patios and a pond. The children are grown and gone and the garden is grown yet comes back every year, a lovely metaphor on the nature of parenting adults.

I get joy from gardening that is visceral and emotional. I put in a bed to fix the shape; or put in a plant to change the profile or enhance the color. My garden has a beautiful design, but I didn't "design" it. It's just nearly 30 years of living in a space, and moving things around, kind of like the living room furniture. It just takes a little longer with plants. If the color or size works in the spot I want to fill, I’ll try it. If I want to try growing some new thing to eat or preserve, I'll try it. A benefit of this is that the plants that have survived are indeed hardy, with some spectacular successes. I have a number of my own backyard cultivars- an heirloom tomato, sweet alyssum, cleome.

A garden assaults the senses; it makes you “be”: taste, spirit, beauty, scent, intellect. Is there food, light, color, understanding? Are you scientist or goddess? Do you plant for joy or with an understanding of the the science of the effort? What makes a garden a garden and not just a yard? There’s sight of course— what most people think of when they see a garden— it looks nice. And taste— you can grow the things you eat.

This is where gardeners start, I think, with a desire for beauty and food. But gardens also have sound. Buzzing insects, and singing birds. Rustling of small animals in the brush, maybe running water. Gardeners know about touch. The fuzz of a lambs ear, or the prick of a rose. A crisp forsythia leaf, the hard shell of a nut, the heavy sun on the back of your neck and of course the wonderful feel of the soil around your hands.

Technique is important to get the result you want, and each pursuit has an inherent aesthetic that is met even if you don't think about it. Green things are pretty; food tastes good.

But technique alone cannot bring joy, that ineffable element that stills your heart and calms your brain. Through every season, as the plants cycle through their growth and decline, the monochrome of winter arrives, tone and contrast become the main color statements in a garden— black dirt or red branches against white snow, the warmer areas that melt sooner creating lines through the garden, a shoveled path. In winter you see more clearly the lines of a tree, and the texture of seedpods left for the birds. The dense branches of a shrub, especially if its red or orange or purple berries still hang on, add a contrasting round shape within the lines of the canes or branches, and the overall shape of the bush stands in contrast to the clean lines of architechtural elements like walkways, trellises and patios.

I finally went through the Master Gardener course, thinking I wanted to be a “real” gardener at last, but I think like our old friend the Velveteen Rabbit, a gardener becomes real, not through her methods or involvement, but through the love she feels for her plants, and the feedback of friends; through the flowers in her vase, and the food she shares.

The application asks for “challenges” but I refuse to think of my garden in that way. A garden is not a challenge, but an antidote to the challenge that is life.

Z is for zucchini

I'm hopeless at them.

I always read with amusement the "how to get rid of zucchini" posts every summer. In the past decade, with zucchini planted maybe 4 of those years, I think I have managed, maybe... 3?

That's right-- three zucchinis. Not three plants. Three. Zucchinis.

It's one of the untold stories of the gardening world--the things that experienced, knowledgeable gardeners are bad at. I am hopeless at eggplant, beets, spinach, zucchini, and onions. No amount of reading, training, class-taking, soil-amending, researching, wintersowing, direct sowing, indoor sowing--you name it I've tried it, seems to be able to get consistent harvests from me on these plants.

Notoriously difficult plants like pumpkins and leeks, corn, cabbage, rosemary? No problem. They do just fine.

Mind you, the eggplant seedlings that I grew are in gardens all over Chicago, yielding dozens of fruits per plant. Mine have managed fewer than one each--6 aubergine plants, 5 fruits so far. I did manage to get 80 onions this year, after the 3rd planting finally took. Beets, though. I've planted 4 entire seed packets. I have 6 beets out there, and they're of the "baby" sort. If I ran a fancy restaurant, the type where a dish=one bite, and I only made enough for the first 3 diners, I'd be golden.

And then there's zucchini. I love zucchini. I can cook a LOT of zucchini. Stir fry, lasagna, bread, salads, pickles. And yet I just don't seem to be able to grow it.

Next time you walk into someone's gorgeous garden, think about what you don't see. Everyone can't grow something.

And finally--thank you so much Suzy Morris, for this very challenging challenge. I think I managed every letter, if not every day. Who's with me for the next challenge-- a No Buy October!

You never count your beans when you're sitting at the table

Last year I lost the entire bean crop to rabbits. This year I'm snagging about half of it. I keep thinking I've sealed off all its little bolt holes, but it just finds another. On the other hand, the furfaces and creepy-crawlies seem to be leaving everything else alone.

The thing about gardening, and life really, is that you have to learn when to just let it go. It's The Gambler, right? Know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em, know when to walk away, and know when to pull out the shotgun and fill the little bastards' backsides full of buckshot.

Oops, sorry. I meant "trap it and turn it loose in the forest."

In the spring, here in Chicago, we had to just let it go as we got floods and floods of rain, nearly half the year's total precipitation in just about 9 weeks from March through mid June. Everyone I know planted their carrots two or three times, or gave up on lettuce this year, or didn't plant cucumbers until July. The tomatoes, of course, we fight to keep like little demons, because while they love to GROW in Chicago, they're not so crazy about starting out, so every tomato that makes it past sprout is as precious as a child, and frankly, I treat them better than I treat my children.

I have a beautiful garden. No ugly gardens for me! (ducks.) So I really really don't want to put up chicken wire fencing to keep the rabbits out. It's ugly (whining). It scratches. I can't get into the beds. Of course, if I wasn't so insistent on curvy sexy shapes for my beds it would be easy to put up perfectly decent looking fencing. Anyway, the fencing is up and as the foliage gets more lush you can barely see it.

Problem is, the rabbit apparently barely sees it either, because he keeps getting in there.

Here's what I made today (with ingredients from the farmers market, rather than the garden, since I don't have enough beans to make a salad with them.)

Peach-cherry chutney
based on the recipe in Jeff Smiths' Our Immigrant Ancestors

1 cup sweet cherries, halved and pitted
3-4 cups peaches, peeled and diced (about 5 peaches)
juice of 1/2 lemon (about 2 Tablespoons)
1 cup any dried berry (dried raisins, blueberries, currants, etc.)
1 cup chopped walnuts (optional)

1/2 cup honey
1/4 cup distilled white vinegar or rice vinegar
1 teaspoon each:
cumin, red pepper flakes, fennel seeds, coriander seeds, brown mustard
1/2 teaspoon each:
kosher salt, dried thyme, black peppercorns

Drain the fruit, conserving the liquid.

Combine the honey, vinegar and spices, plus the peach peels and cherry pits in a medium saucepan. Add a little water to thin it slightly. Mix thoroughly and boil gently, until syrup is thick and sticks to the bottom of the spoon, about 15 minutes or so, depending on how much liquid you have to boil away. Strain and return to the saucepan.

Place the drained fruit, plus the dried fruit and optional nuts in a bowl and add the lemon juice. Mix thoroughly. Fold the fruit into the syrup and simmer very briefly (less than a minute). Decant into sterilized jars and refrigerate or preserve using your favorite canning technique. Should refrigerate for a day before serving.

Feng Shui in the Garden

I started using DIY feng shui in my house about 10 years ago. To me, feng shui is a structure on which to build your own sense of balance in a space. I map my baguas and try to balance the elements, but at heart I'm just trying to make a room "feel" good.

You can spot a room that has been arranged with a cold heart, or without the hand or input of the room's users. It will seem dead or impersonal. The light sits heavily in an unbalanced room and the air doesn't move.

I asked a friend who is a knowledgeable amateur to come look at my garden, and she helped me rebalance it. We laid a new patio and reshaped the central bed. We added a water feature and paths.

I was thrilled recently to find Ann Bingley Gallops over at Open Spaces Feng Shui. In her recent newsletter about feng shui in the garden she states, “to get good Feng Shui going in your garden, start with the Bagua, using it just as you would in a room of your home.” On her site, there’s a pdf of the Bagua map (right sidebar, scroll down), which identifies the nine most important parts of your life and aligns it with specific areas of your space.

She continues: “The entry to your garden is the place from which you enter it most frequently. Now, look around and use the map to think about how each area is working to support your life.

“For example, what's in the back left-hand corner, which is your Wealth & Abundance area? After you've ascertained that it's not filled with debris or things you don't want or love, think about what you could add to enhance this important zone: good lighting, strong vertical plantings, and red, purple or gold flowers, for instance.”

This area used to be the dumping ground of the garden. To fix it, we laid out a round patio of scavenged marble and flagstone, and lined it with golden flowers—daffodils, tulips, squash. The entry way has “sentinal” flowers in red and purple: columbine, glads, eggplants, and nasturtium.

Here’s Ann again: “How about the Relationship area, in the back right-hand corner? Enhance this section with romantic flowers in shades of red or pink, and with plantings that "pair up" nicely.” In our garden, this is vegetables. Since I always plant for beneficial pairings, this worked out nicely—tomatoes with parsley and carrots, broccoli with radishes, beans with squash and corn.

Here’s Ann on water features: “Looking at the Bagua map, the best locations for a pond or fountain are the Life Journey, Family/New Beginnings, and Wealth/Prosperity areas. These areas are all associated with Water or with the Wood element, which is nourished by Water in the cycle of the Five Elements (here is more information about the Five Elements).

Luckily, our pond could really only be put in the Life Journeys bagua. Plus, because it’s near the entry path the first thing you experience when walking into the garden is the sound of flowing water. Very auspicious.

My small yard (23x60) has 10 distinct beds, separated by grass, brick, glass block or mulch paths. Ann: “Finally, consider the "path of Chi" as you lay out your garden. A graceful, sinuous path encourages Chi energy - and people! -- to slow down, explore and enjoy your garden. And welcoming Chi energy into your garden with an open, inviting pathway will bring you its positive benefits, over and over again."

I think I got it right, because even dogs that come into my garden follow the paths.

Here are some more portraits from my garden, and some panoramas to trace the progress of the design.

Thank you to Ann Bingley Gallops for her permission to reprint extensively from her blog, newsletter, and site, Open Spaces Feng Shui