#gardenrant

I’ll either leave this or rip it out and replace it because it is really too much.

Pick a side, because the middle ground is disappearing. What’s true on the political front is equally true on the gardening front. Over the summer, I have watched gardeners in my region go all out for natives, ruthlessly getting rid of plants they—admittedly—like, once they find out their buddleia/shasta daisies/forsythia/clematis are “useless.” The daisies especially made me sad, because I’d love to have a big patch of daisies and have not yet been able to make it happen, through too much shade and likely too much incompetence. Native vs. non continues to cause heated and unnecessary conflict in the gardening world.

Another polarizing issue for many US gardeners is about to take center stage as we pass the autumn equinox, deciduous trees start to shed their leaves, and summer perennials finish up their decline. The discussion has already begun here, and it’s interesting. There are the traditional gardeners who love a fall clean-up. That means cutting back almost everything so the snow will have tidy beds to fall upon. Anyone who hires a mow ’n’ blow landscaper will see their perennials—and many shrubs—cut back to nothing.

And then there is the other side. “Leave everything!” they cry. “Don’t cut back anything!” It’s really just rumblings, now, but soon it will be a roar. And then the leaves. Who’d like to start a pool on when the first “Leave the leaves” post or meme will appear?

We have to clean up our maples leaves or they’d form a thick, sodden mat that—without decomposing at all—will smother small spring bulbs and emerging perennials in the spring. We put them out for the municipal compost program, which picks them up. But I was surprised to see that the crew who did the leaves also took it upon themselves to cut some mature hydrangeas (arborescens) way back and remove many perennial stalks and foliage. I was at work, and didn’t know or I would have stopped them. This year, I’ll be on the spot.

I just don’t see the point. Old man winter will beat the hell out of those perennials, and I won’t have that much to remove in the spring. Lazy gardener=wildlife advocate, in this case.

Gardeners who have diverse landscapes with abundant trees, shrubs, and perennials should likely not worry about what and what not to clean up. Just be lazy; do what you have to or really want to (your choice!) and leave the rest. Only the individual gardener can decide how much cleanup/lack thereof makes sense. Polarizing directives do not help them.

It’s gardener vs. gardener season originally appeared on GardenRant on September 23, 2020.

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Early February. Pam Spaulding photo.

I squeaked by in high school chemistry doing little more than fiddling around with the Bunsen burner so it would throw flames like a tiny oil refinery. I was easily distracted in class, but I never saw any reason to dispute the science behind the periodic table.

What little do I know now?

Chemistry was hard to grasp.

Addressing the alarming consequences of climate change is harder.

Too hard for the President.

Numbing out is easier.

Late May

Bless a few of my Trump-loving friends who have turned a corner and, now, at least, acknowledge that POTUS is crazy, but insist: “If your plumber can fix a leak, who cares if he’s crazy?”

I care.

Also he’s not fixing the leak.

Our crazy President gaslights science as counterfeit and remains unbudgeable on climate change.

This is scary.

Mid-July

Our two-acre melting pot of native pollinators is inconsequential in any larger environmental sense, but I feel healthier and happier walking through a diverse meadow of colors, scents and hummingbirds.

Is this an illusion—the doping effect of a do-gooder?

Late August

Goldenrod, ironweed, green milkweed and frostweed have crossed into our meadow. That’s OK. They join big bluestem, greasy grass, prairie coneflower, New England Aster and other native species that were originally sown late in 2011.

Wind has blown in box elder seeds, and squirrels have buried walnuts. The meadow seems stubbornly determined to return to the central Kentucky forest it once was.

Mid-September

Our meadow won’t save the earth.

The planet can only be preserved with personal, and powerful, worldwide leadership.

Presidential Consequences and a Meadow originally appeared on GardenRant on September 21, 2020.

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I knew full well what I was getting into. My dormant gardening genes from my father’s side kicked in back in 1987, soon after my wife and I bought our first house. I had grown up around gardens. My Dad had a rock garden in the backyard and also a vegetable plot in a nearby community garden. I loved working in that veggie garden until I reached an age where sex, drugs, and rock and roll became a distraction. But I did have that early exposure to both vegetable and ornamental gardening as a kid, and when I got that first piece of ground and those genes reared their ugly heads, for some reason I focused on food. Later on, at our second house, it turned to all things ornamental.

My Great Grandfather in his vegetable patch.

That first vegetable garden quickly became all-consuming. It started large and then got larger. Began with a few tomatoes and peppers. In three or four years, we grew every vegetable, had a small orchard, grapes, and raised rabbits. We were tapping our maples and making wine. The joke is that things got so out of control that we had to move. And so we did. To a house we had long admired only a tenth a mile up the street.

Young, dumb, urban farmers. Circa 1987. So sweet. So innocent. 

Although I had every intention of starting a new, albeit scaled down, veggie garden at the new house, it never happened for a variety of reasons. The main reason was that the space I had set aside for the veggie garden we later learned had been at one time a gravel driveway. Compacted beyond belief. Almost like concrete. So it became my propagation area/mini nursery until June 2019, when we wound up hosting my son’s wedding in our back yard. The listing, rusting frame of my hoop house was deemed a poor backdrop for such an esteemed event, and so it went to the scrapyard. In its place, finally, went some raised beds, a grape arbor, and some veggies. Last year, I dabbled a bit. This year I dug in deeper.

The new house, which was in fact way older than the old house. A Dutch colonial whose ground lured me into ornamental gardening. 

The old nursery before it was removed. In the background is my neighbor’s backyard. 

Again, I reiterate, I knew full well what I was getting into. I have always enjoyed irony, and my favorite ironic moment in the world is when, having learned that I work in Horticulture, someone says, “Hey, I’m thinking of getting into gardening, but nothing hard. Just some vegetables. Maybe a fruit tree. Possibly some roses. Got any tips?” “Yeah, think again!”

So, yes, I knew a return to vegetable gardening would have its ups and downs. I expected some disappointments. Still, two things wound up catching me by surprise. First, was just how emotionally invested I became in this new part of the garden, and, second, just how total was my failure! I tried denying much of it for a while, but then my humiliation was complete when I recently had cause to visit a nearby community garden. There, in plain sight, I could compare the overflowing bountiful harvests being enjoyed by some twenty or thirty area residents, all of them mere amateurs, as the image of my own barren wasteland periodically appeared in my head. As we walked about, I posed as respectable horticulturist and did not mention anything about my troubles and doubts to the woman who was showing me around.

The barren wasteland. A field where dreams go to die but where shame and humiliation flourish.

In my defense, my garden is prettier than any that I saw there, and we did harvest some lettuce, beans, and garlic. And my tomato plants are beautiful. Ten feet tall, they are tied up to a bamboo frame in a straight row. They even screen the view of my neighbor’s yard from where we sit on the patio. It’s just a damned pity that the neighborhood cartel of squirrels got it in their stupid, disturbed little squirrel brains to cut off and partially eat my entire crop of beautifully developing green tomatoes.

And then there was a deer. I never have deer in my backyard. We have a four foot fence which is heavily planted on both sides with all kinds of trees and shrubs, so, having no place from which to launch and nowhere to land, they never visit. Until one day this summer. Like a bonehead, I removed one little extra shrub to make more light for my veggies. Never even occurred to me that I had just created a hole in the defenses. Two nights later, the world’s most observant deer, but also a very clumsy one, found the breach, got in, and busted off the one tomato plant whose loss could embarrass me.

At a master gardener’s conference 2-3 years ago, I met another speaker whose name is Heather Pariso. She wound up offering to send seeds of a tomato that she had bred herself for me to grow at the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden. But then I lost the seeds, and then suffered shame when Heather checked in to see how they were doing. But then I found the seeds, and started them over winter in my basement at home. Sent Heather a happy email telling her so. I thought I would plant them at the Zoo, but then COVID-19 hit. Because I was working from home, I wound up planting one plant in my garden. How could I know then that spot where I put it would soon be the very place where a klutzy deer would stumble around like a belligerent drunk? Of course Heather texted a month later to see how the plant was doing, and, once again, I suffered shame.

Me, more recently, receiving adoration from the master gardeners who attended the conference where I met Heather.

We’ve all known that person who brings in hundreds of pounds of zucchini and begs everyone to take some? Well, that sure wasn’t me. My squash plants grew beautifully, put out hundreds of flowers. Know how many squash we enjoyed? Exactly one. That’s all that developed from all those flowers. WTH?

Does all this failure, humiliation, and shame mean I’m going to quit? Absolutely not. I’m nowhere near that smart, and I’m already making plans for next year. I might need more light, so I’m thinking of cutting down the gingko. Or the coffeetree. Maybe both. Maybe I need a truckload of manure. Maybe I need to buy a gun, learn how to hunt, and develop a taste for squirrel. I’ve got ideas. I can go all kinds of directions, but I can’t go back on the vegetable garden. Not now. It’s on, and I’m all in.

A Humbling Return to Veggie Gardening originally appeared on GardenRant on September 16, 2020.

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The latest of the Virtual Summer Garden Tours we’re assembling instead of holding in-person tours is the cool oasis created by the talented gardener Sandra Lange.

Luckily for us, Sandra’s son David Barnes is a professional videographer and was available to work with her to create a PBS-quality tour, with Sandra providing the narration. It’s embedded below. But first, an introduction.

About the Gardener

Sandra did not have a garden until she moved to Greenbelt in 1966 when she discovered her love for the natural world and her proximity to Behnke’s Nursery. Over the years, she visited many gardens, including several in Japan and China. She attended flower shows—Floriade in the Netherlands, Chelsea in London and, of course, Philadelphia.

Over the past 50 years, she and her gardening buddy, Mary Lou Williamson, toured many gardens and nurseries throughout Washington, Virginia and Delaware, and shopped plant sales near and far.  Inspiration for her own garden has been influenced by her travels, gardening publications and programs, as well as by meeting many dedicated gardeners.

About the Garden

The primary focus of Sandra’s garden is her pond. She and her husband David moved into their present home in 2003. In 2005, they engaged Meadows Farms to design a free-form, irregularly shaped 12′ x 18′ pond with two waterfalls that cascade into stream beds that flow into the main pond. Weathered limestone rocks of various sizes and shapes surround the pond. There also is an 11 x 17 foot shaded flagstone patio and walkways.

Sandra planted a variety of trees and shrubs—Zelkova, Japanese maples, Chinese fringe tree, Heptacodium (Seven Son), Chaste trees, Japanese willow, viburnums, oak leaf hydrangeas, camillias, all of which have matured over the past 15 years. She has a collection of peonies, including four Itohs, an edgeworthia (paper bush), varigated deutzia. There are many varieties of ferns, astilbe, azaleas, hostas. A Japanese style arbor frames the entrance to the garden. A collection of pots feature banana plants, amorphophalllus lillies (corpse flower), pineapple lilies, hibiscus.

The pond is host to burgundy colocasias, deep red irises, acorus, ginger and lotus plants, three koi, frogs and an occasional black snake.

The lawn was eliminated several years ago and replanted with Japanese ferns, variegated liriope, brunnera and epimedium.  The entire yard is surrounded by white and red oaks and hollies that transport one into a lush and peaceful environment.

Now Watch!

Virtual Tour of a Garden Oasis originally appeared on GardenRant on September 14, 2020.

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Terra cotta bird bath on a stump.

Rant reader Dale Leeper posted the comment about his home-made bird bath in a comment to my  bird bath story, and it sounded great to me. I emailed right away asking for photos, and here they are!

Watching the video, it is apparent the bird is afraid of falling into too deep water. Unfortunately, bird baths are often made with human aesthetics in mind instead of the bird’s need. The sides are steep and slippery.

I made my birdbath from a terracotta 16-inch pot saucer. The edges are thick and provide good gripping. The bottom is flat and only a little over an inch deep. Birds have little fear of it.

I placed it on a pedestal I made from an old tree stump cut to about 3 to 4 feet. First I placed an inch of sand on the ground, tamped it down, and leveled it. On top of that a $1, 16-inch cement stepping stone from the home store. The stump sits on top of that, keeping it off the soil.

Then I put 3 galvanized screws in the top of the stump about 8 inches apart in a triangle. The screws can be screwed up or down to make them level with each other using a bubble level. Place the pot saucer on that and fill with water that will be level.

It’s easy to clean since the saucer just sits on the screws and the terracotta is heavy enough to keep it in place even if a squirrel visits.

I’ve had it for at least 10 years and the stump has not deteriorated yet. It looks natural in the landscape, too.

The screws are raised or lowered to keep the saucer flat.

Thanks, Dale!

A Rant Reader’s DIY Bird Bath originally appeared on GardenRant on September 13, 2020.

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Cincinnati, Ohio

Dear Marianne,

Through our ongoing letters and because of the few times we’ve hung out, I must admit I have become rather fond of you. Despite having a few lingering concerns caused mainly by your fixation on all things British, I pretty much consider you a friend. Yet, I was surprised by how angry I got when I read in your letter about the woman (who will be from now on referred to as “Clueless Lady Critic”) who had reacted to a recent post on your website by stating that she was, “Looking for something more positive.”  In an earlier draft I wrote something here my wife made me remove, but let’s just agree that that was an incredibly rude and ignorant thing to say!

One of the things we have in common is whatever that mental disease is that causes someone to garden too much. People like us always want to do more, and have just enough drive to almost get it all done. The void, of course, causes stress, which is relieved, of course, by one of two spirits and tonic water. On one hand, this is okay. This, along with our unwavering commitment to journalistic integrity, is what gives us such cred with our loyal readers, who are, each and every of them, elite gardeners and amazing people. They appreciate our honest and heartfelt attempts to find and express absolute gardening truth. Yet, on the other hand, it sets us up to periodically crash and burn, which, sure as hell, happens every August.

Spring is a breeze. Lots of work, but it feels good. Like it’s making a difference. Like it’s setting you up for a beautiful summer. You feel creative and in control.

So if “Clueless Lady Critic” was expecting to read airhead happy, peppy, dopey, dumb as hell garden writing that came from anywhere other than the UK or PNW in August, then what she really wants is to be lied to. Obviously lied to. Like from a millionaire African Prince who loves her madly and needs only a small loan to unlock his tremendous wealth so they can live happily ever after. For some reason, I picture this woman at home in a big fancy house. She is, of course, inside, air-conditioned, hydrated, drinking wine in the afternoon, and unsuccessfully trying to amuse herself by micromanaging her gardener by text, writing vicious, hateful remarks in the comments section of online news articles, and, when the opportunity arises, ripping the heart out of a fragile, honest, earnest, and truthful garden writer. A garden writer who lives in Virginia of all places, and whose one mistake was posting something she wrote in August. By the way, I totally apologize if this description of “Clueless Critic Lady” critic in any way resembles how you might have looked as you composed your recent rant on Martha Stewart earlier this week. If that is so, it was purely an unfortunate coincidence.

Until mid-July, everywhere you turn is exuberance. Color. Life. Growth.

Marianne, I don’t know your opinion, but 2020 has been a big disappointment to me. This, of course, only made August worse than it usually is. I started at least five blogs and articles which experienced absolutely no quality of life at until they began an extended period of suffering before, mercifully, I killed them. They all started with good ideas, I thought, but it was impossible to find one redeeming thing about any of them. The more I tried, the worse they got. Even now, midway through September, I’m still feeling the effects. This letter had multiple false starts. It has taken almost two weeks, and I still don’t like it. But, I now know that it served a very useful purpose. Only by writing this was I finally able to see that these struggles had nothing to do with my limitations as a writer. They were entirely caused by August’s endless capacity to crush one’s spirit. And although it was mortifying to miss my August Garden Rant deadline, I’m glad that I did. If I had posted anything more than a grocery list (which even on its fifth draft would have been cliche-ridden and full of mistakes), our loyal readers, each of them elite gardeners and amazing people, would have seen right through it. Every effort at humor? Flat as Kansas. The hope for some fragment of insight? A false hope. And anything that feigned that I still cared about anyone or anything at all would have been an obvious lie. Our loyal readers would have revolted! I would have looked like a complete fraud, and I’d really prefer to keep everyone guessing about that for as long as possible!

The issue here is the divide between readers who know about trying to garden in August and those who don’t. Over 90F days all over the place. Humidity. Lots of work to do, but none of it is the fun, creative stuff you do in spring or fall. Nope. It’s just hard labor. Tasks like dragging hoses around and defibrillating your spouse who unwisely offered to help out. And, although the garden is still functioning, the reward is greatly diminished. It pretty much looks as bad and tired as you do.

Then there’s August.

What we really need is for a celebrity gardener to inform the general public about what to expect from honest garden writers in August. Someone willing to scream it in profanity-laced streams of invective at Master Gardener conferences. Martha Stewart would have been the obvious choice, but I think you might have nipped that one in the bud with your hatchet job on her a few days ago. Maybe we can get P. Allen Smith to record a public service announcement that might sometimes run on PBS between 2:00 and 4:00 AM. “P. Allen Smith here, telling y’all to skip your chores in August, and remember to go a little easy on our garden writing friends.” Might help.

I’ll see what I can do. I know a guy from Arkansas. They’re probably related or something. In the meantime, I need to get rolling. August has left me with a backlog of life to get caught up on. I suppose I’d better try to get some of it off my plate. I’ll be following with another note soon about my adventures trying to grow a vegetable garden this summer. Another reason my will to live needs resuscitation.

The Heart of Darkness exploring the vegetable garden in spring. We give him a home. We feed him. But will he chase off squirrels? Turns out, no.

By the way, I’m having further doubts abut your friend Beth Chatto. If you’re already gardening in the hottest, driest part of England, is it such a great idea to put a gravel garden on top of a parking lot? I think it would have been smarter to find a better spot, amend it with organic matter, and maybe install irrigation. But, hey, what do I know? That’s just me.

Your Friend,

Scott

PS-I may be rather fond of you, but I fell over the top in love with your wickedly smart and sharply efficient response to “Clueless Critic Lady’s” snarky comment and notification that she would be blocking your posts. If I should live long enough and type enough random letters to ever string together six words as brilliant as, “relieved me of her reading services,” it will be over. From that moment on, I will be impossible to live with!

Upbeat Garden Writing in August? A False Positive! originally appeared on GardenRant on September 12, 2020.

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So, it’s come to this.

As a nation, we are so starved for American garden programming that we are willing to accept that a woman worth over $620 million dollars, stuck for 82 days on her 153-acre estate in Bedford, NY; with her gardener, one of her housekeepers, and one of her drivers; and joined as needed by groundskeepers and their foreman, is going to fill that need and leave us hungry for another season of down-to-earth gardening advice.

So starved, that we are willing to accept HGTV promos that tell us that this immaculately dressed and fully made-up celebrity, sans sweat, sans grimy hands, and sans, apparently, a production assistant to create some small illusion of same, is relatable; and “puts the G back in HGTV.”

So starved, that we are willing to overlook her frequent – and historical – transposition of the pronouns “I” and “they” when discussing the nitty-gritty of projects undertaken on that 153-acre estate.

So. Starved.

Six episodes worth of gilded crumbs. And I’m afraid this gardener has lost her appetite.

It’s not about the money…

Perhaps the best way to launch into my review [and accompanying visual aids] of the first season of HGTV’s Martha Knows Best, (which I watched in its entirety after Susan’s recent review here) is to make it perfectly clear that I have no problem with the [legal] accumulation of wealth.

What wrestling a tiller really looks like.

I have no problem, as it were, with the wealthy.

You earned it. You spend it.  Martha Stewart is not just an extraordinary business woman, but a talented creative with an expert eye sharpened over many years.

She also has the genius to recognize, nurture, and promote that spark in other creatives.

If she insists that the 1000+ containers on her property be of the same color family (stone, concrete or marble), and never wishes to see an artistic vegetable in a flower arrangement, and lines utilitarian pathways to peacock enclosures with cut blocks of granite, who am I to criticize her from enjoying the whims that whacking great wads of cash can indulge?

I’ll have to tell my insanely talented friend Louisa Zimmermann-Roberts at Thanksgiving Farms in Frederick, MD, that her summer arrangement of Swiss chard, sweet pea, red raspberries, grapes eggplant, okra, chives, black-eyed peas and banana leaves is not officially sanctioned. She’s going to take it really well.

If I lived across the street as one of her “very many fancy neighbors” I would raise a glass to her abilities at the neighborhood block party, and conscientiously ask her advice when it came to pairing champagne and stemware for a well-lubricated celebrity crowd of twenty on a Saturday night.

I might even ask which echeveria to use in the tablescape.

Wickedly, I’d also try to tempt her hardworking gardener, Ryan McCallister, to cross the street and become my personal gardener.  My current gardener, Cutout Andy (though versatile and well-traveled), doesn’t have the same twinkle in his eye.

Cutout Andy and I discussing plans for the garden.

All this to say, I respect what she has achieved and have no desire to set up a mini-guillotine in the exquisitely designed cobblestone courtyard of her horse stables. I won’t even debate aspects of her gardening advice.  Susan did that already.

I also respect the fact that she is a 79-year-old woman who is a damn sight more active than your average 79-year-old American.

Let Them Eat Cake

What I don’t respect however, is this laughable attempt to appear ‘relatable’ as someone who is just like me, or like 99% of the gardening public.

I don’t respect the producers of this show having so little awareness of the current suffering going on throughout the country that they felt that a conspicuous display of fabulous wealth could feed the public’s very real (and in many cases, economic) need for gardening advice.

At a certain point it goes from being laughable, to being downright offensive. From the intro:

“I’ve lived on this farm for about 17 years. And like you I’m spending more time at home than ever before.  So I’m going to take you behind the scenes as I do my gardening projects. I’m going to help my celebrity friends. And surprise new gardeners.”

Here’s one of my gardening projects – Endlessly Weeding. On my knees. On my own. And I’m one of the lucky ones.

It must be horrific to spend 82 days on 153 acres. With a modified staff.

What about 82 days on a tenth of an acre (like my last house)?  What about 82 days in an apartment with a philodendron?

Uhhh….there’s a pandemic going on?

We have been six months at this pandemic.  After years in cramped quarters, I now live on ten beautiful acres in a four-bedroom house. And I’m ready to bury my husband’s work-from-home body in a remote corner of the property at this point.  It might even be classified as a COVID death.

And no doubt my husband feels the same way.

And yet, every evening of this mess, when I watch the news and see cities in such turmoil, I think of my 10×12′ apartment in New York, when I was 100% dependent on food service jobs and student loans to make my bills.

Each and every morning when I walk through the garden I think of our little upstairs flat in Southeast London when my son was a toddler, and how desperate I was for more than a window box and a few pots by the door.

My very first vegetable garden – a 2x17ft unpaved strip in the parking lot outside our tiny apartment in Southern California. (Photo from Big Dreams, Small Garden, 2017)

And each morning I am deeply grateful for the space around me, and painfully aware that others are struggling in this pandemic under terrible conditions with no end in sight.

No awareness from Hollywood apparently.  Or from Bedford.

“When the pandemic started and quarantine became de rigueur,” says Stewart, “I invited Ryan, my gardener, I invited Carlos, one of my drivers, and one of my housekeepers Elvira, to stay with me during this time.”

Quarantine.  De rigueur.  Alrighty then. So is a floor length gown at a debutante ball Martha. But okay, we’ll just go with it.

Lost in Translation

And if you didn’t study French in high school and are currently running to Google Translate – keep the tab open. To Martha, soil that is ready for planting does not resemble a palm full of pastry dough, but pâte brisée.

It’s actually an excellent analogy that falls short in its delivery. As does dropping mise en place to describe setting gardening tools in place for a project.

While you’re at it, you might want to check out  Île de la Cité, where Martha gets “all her seeds.”

No Chanel or Dior for this everyday gardener when she arrives in Paris, she tells us, but straight to those lovely little seed markets.

I didn’t want to bring Marie and her cake into this, but damn.

My husband and I on our way to the seed markets. Regrettably he had to drive us due to some staffing issues.

I remark upon these Gallicisms as someone with five years of French under her belt, a fair amount of experience in the kitchen and garden, and an unfortunate history of dropping sans into conversation, but a young, beginning American gardener doesn’t know her pâte brisée from her pot of ease-ay.

99.9% of low or middle-income gardeners are not jetting to Paris for their seeds and will probably see what’s available at local garden centers before they consider even splurging on shipping fees for online sources, no matter how wonderful they are.

I know I did.

And here. Here is the issue.  Pretending that this is a gardening show instead of a celebrity reality show.

The wonderful thing about Cutout Andy is that he is so incredibly portable.  Here he is on his way to help my mother in her garden in California.

Just Ask Martha

A few moments of FaceTiming Mitch in Lemoore, California about soil preparation for his carrots; or telling Maggie in Mississippi that she needs “ferns” for the north side of her shady house; or letting Karlin from Florida in on the not-so-little secret that she needs a coop for her ducks to keep them safe from predators; does not constitute ‘hanging with the little people.’

Especially after each performs the requisite sycophantic prelude before speaking to “the Gardening Queen Herself”

Maggie:  “I almost started crying but I did keep it together.”

And then there are the celebrity cameos.  Hailey Bieber needing dog grooming tips. Jay Leno showing us the kitchen in his garage and asking what a pomegranate is. Zac Posen telling Martha he’s been gardening since March in Bridgehampton.

“Well. It’s SOOO easy to garden in the Hamptons” she laughs.

I’ll just leave that right where it fell.

Cutout Andy taking a few moments away from digging out a new pathway to enjoy a warm tomato from my mother’s garden.

I made my life-long gardening mother watch two episodes with me.  When Martha begged Snoop Dogg to join her in Maine on her 63-acre estate, Skylands, for her next party post-COVID, Mom turned to me with a puzzled look on her face. “It’s like digging your heel into somebody’s face.” She said quietly.  “I’d be embarrassed to say that.”

Even if I gave millions of dollars to charities each year – as no doubt Martha does – I would too.

To his credit, a tee-shirted Richard Gere sat cross-legged and underneath a tree in his father’s average suburban garden where he grew up – even if they spent the entire time discussing the shade beds at his exclusive Relais & Châteaux establishment, The Bedford Post Inn.  He almost seemed a little embarrassed.

Perhaps we have his friendship with the Dalai Lama to thank for that.

She knows her stuff. But she’s forgotten her audience.

Martha’s smart. She’s exceptionally talented. She built an empire.

But she is not the person to put the G back in HGTV.

Those are people like Joe Lamp’l on Growing a Greener World, or Nan Sterman in A Growing Passion, or or down-to-earth influencers like Erin Schanen (www.impatientgardener.com) or Doug Oster (www.dougoster.com), or Ron Finley (www.ronfinley.com) who show you the trials, tribulations and glorious successes without the catchy music and celebrity friends.

Ron Finley of South Central L.A., an activist gardener who has changed thousands of lives by inspiring people living in the food deserts of inner cities to garden (Source: www.RonFinley.com)

For advanced gardeners who have yet to watch ‘Martha Knows Best,’ do. I’d like to know what you think.

But if you’re a brand-new gardener – look to the shows, feeds and podcasts of those who garden with the resources and in the region that you do. I guarantee you there are hundreds on YouTube.

Or, depart these shores altogether and take advantage of UK programming that still respects its population enough to provide polished and professional gardening programs to inspire everyday gardeners, such as Charlie Dimmock’s new endeavor, Garden Rescue, classic episodes of Ground Force, or Monty Don and others truly getting their hands dirty in BBC Gardener’s World. (Please leave your suggestions in the comments for excellent gardening programming in other parts of the world.)

Martha Knows Best is not a gardening show. It’s a celebrity reality show that takes place outside. And in the middle of a pandemic, when millions are out of work, businesses are shuttered, and large segments of the population are watching their future dreams for even a modest home and garden sabotaged by something completely out of their control, we deserve better.

Let’s hope HGTV digs a little deeper and finds it.

  ‘Martha Knows Best’ Is Not Great. It’s Not Even a Good Thing. originally appeared on GardenRant on September 10, 2020.

The post ‘Martha Knows Best’ Is Not Great. It’s Not Even a Good Thing. appeared first on GardenRant.

  Otis Knox in his 2018 sunflower field.

I would not have batted an eye at Mr. Stripey if Otis Knox had not insisted it was the best tomato—ever. It matters little whether this is true or not. Otis signed off on the heirloom, and that’s all I needed to know. For weeks this summer, I have made Mr. Stripey tomato sandwiches on toasted white bread, smothered with Duke’s mayonnaise. I haven’t jumped ship, yet.

Otis passed last month. My friend and neighbor was 82 years old.

We were an odd couple. He—the poor country boy from Gritter’s Ridge, near Rogers, in eastern Kentucky; I—the privileged suburban boy from Louisville. He tilted right; I leaned left. Neither birthright nor party affiliation was a deal breaker. Our mutual affection was forged by friends, neighbors, love of God, trees, storytelling, music and even—tomato sandwiches.

Mr. Stripey

Precious memories.

Rose and I bought ten acres in North Mercer County, on a bend of the Salt River, in 2010. Neighbors asked if we had met Otis. They rolled their eyes when I answered, “No.” I wondered, then, if this was a warning. I understand, now, it was a tip for:  You’re in for a treat.

I waited to meet Otis.

Otis and his wife Ilene once owned our farm. Our county-maintained road is named Knox Lane in their honor.

Otis and Ilene in 2014

Otis came calling one day.

He heard through the North Mercer County grapevine that we had cut down a large white pine to put in a graveled driveway. He wasted no time before telling me, graciously and unequivocally, that he was sorry to see one of his precious trees cut down.

Otis had dug small, white pine seedlings from a hillside, near Ilene’s Wolfe County home place, to plant shortly after he moved to our farm in 1976.

Otis in the pines, 2015.

I tried feebly to explain that I loved trees and planned on planting more pines, oaks, hickories, sassafras, yellowwoods and persimmons here on the farm.

He remained devoted to his pines, even after he moved across the river in 1990.  Rose and I planted hundreds of trees before he was convinced that he could trust me on trees.

My sister-in-law, Holly Cooper, a few years later, spotted a peculiar witches’ broom in one of Otis’s pines. Later on, my arborist friend, Robert Rollins, cut some scion sections with a pole pruner and they were grafted onto white pine seedling understock. I anointed the new, dwarf pine tree Pinus strobus ‘Otis Knox.’ I offered Otis his progeny, but he said he’d be happier if I gave it a home, where it belonged—here on the river. Otis, the tree, five years later, is a healthy, slow-poking, one footer. (An ordinary white pine seedling would grow to three to four inches in five years.)

Witches’ broom in Otis’s pine.

  Karl Klein of Crestwood, KY grafts ‘Otis Knox’.

Our Salvisa farm expanded to 47 acres.

Soon Otis was visiting regularly. He brought his wife Ilene, his sister Edith, and his brother-in-law, Kenny, to show them what was going on. This was a subtle vote of confidence. Otis pointed out the crooked but still graceful chicken coop and corn crib he had built years ago.

Otis once ran cows on our place and planted corn and cut timber. He worked days as a tool and die maker at I.B.M. in Lexington. On many Saturday nights, friends came over. He and brother R.D. played music from a hay wagon, in the bottomland below the barn. R.D. passed in 2012; Ilene in 2014.

Otis and brother R.D. make music.

Otis lived alone but was not lonely. He enjoyed company. Lots of company. I began to see more of him. We loved University of Kentucky basketball. Rose and I didn’t have a TV then, so he began inviting me to his place to watch games on his big screen. He sat in his recliner; I took to the sofa. Basketball games were an excuse for storytelling. The games were muted, while Otis launched story after interesting story about his many adventures and misadventures.

Saturday evening basketball games were pushed aside for the Marty Stuart show on RFD-TV. There was little talking when Marty started picking. Rose and I became fans. We saw Marty and his band at Lexington’s Opera House on Saturday March 7th. Marty Stuart and His Fabulous Superlatives were, indeed, superlative.

Coincidentally, the first Kentucky Covid case had been diagnosed earlier in the day.

This was our last night out.

The pandemic was underway.

I continued to visit Otis, masked up, once or twice a week, and talked to him every day. Carla, his beloved niece, took care of Uncle “Oat.”

Otis had an appetite as big as his heart. Carla liked to cover fresh biscuits with chocolate gravy for breakfast and fry crappie filets for lunch. The refrigerator was always stocked to the gills.

Cleisa McCoy occasionally brought over meat loaf, and Bobby Jo Monroe delivered cornbread. Noble Boswell gathered wild morels, spring poke leaves and Shawnee salad. Freida Peachey dropped off fried grated potatoes, mixed with sausage and green beans and topped with cheese.

The Peachey family, seven of them, would also phone and sing songs that Otis loved.

Mark Peachey leased land from Otis, where he grew soybeans, hay and the most beautiful field of a sunflowers I have ever seen. Otis loved his sunflowers.

Sunflowers, July 15, 2020.

Otis called a couple of times, in late spring and early summer, and asked me to take him to drive-in church services on a hilltop at the Kirkwood Baptist Church. The congregation sang old country hymns from cars and trucks. I didn’t know the words to any of the songs.  I was a woefully ignorant Episcopalian, good with Beethoven’s Ode to Joy, and weak on Old Rugged Cross, but I was very happy and humbled to be here with my friend. No mask could muffle Otis’s beautiful baritone or his uncanny recollection of so many old songs that he was happy to sing anytime—anywhere.

Carla told me “Precious Memories” was Uncle “Oat’s” favorite song.

“Precious memories, how they linger How they ever flood my soul In the stillness of the midnight Precious, sacred scenes unfold.”

Otis was hospitalized three previous times this year with a variety of ailments. He seemed down for the count each round but proved remarkably resilient and kept bouncing back. On his third hospital stay in July he had been unresponsive for several days, but his health improved again.

He began singing from his room at the end of the hallway. A patient across the hall, came over and said, “I know that voice.” She remembered Otis and brother R.D. singing at one of their impromptu shows long ago in the small town of Duncan, down the hill from Cornishville. Otis told me he and R.D. had sung on every hilltop in Mercer County. When Carla wheeled him out of the hospital to go home, Otis sang his way down the hallway.

The nurses loved him.

Everyone loved Otis

Otis did not survive his 4th hospital stay. He slipped away before he could return to his 150-acre farm and the little tomato patch—full of ripe Mr. Stripeys.

The past few weeks, since he left us, I have continued with a ritual, lunchtime tomato sandwich every few days.

The tomato line up at Otis’s—Mr Stripey on either end with Early Boys and Chef’s Choice (yellow).

I look out the window and see Otis’s white pines.

I am drawn closer to a handful of pine seedlings.

Precious memories grow on Knox Lane.

  Listen to Otis talk about the Knox Lane farm.

https://www.gardenrant.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Otis-Knox-on-the-Knox-Lane-farm-1218-.mp3

The Soul of Knox Lane originally appeared on GardenRant on September 9, 2020.

The post The Soul of Knox Lane appeared first on GardenRant.