George Washington's Big Mistake is My Gain

Downed maple limbs

Dogwood branch snaps

I'm celebrating Presidents Day weekend by honoring a mistake that our first president made in 1792 when he purchased two Norway Maples from the much-trusted Philadelphia nurseryman and botanist John Bartram.

The president bought the trees for his Mount Vernon estate. And he must have thought that he chose well because the tree is known for its thick shade canopy, its early leafing (mid-April) and for its stunning yellow fall colors.

Bartram imported the seed from London and therein visited disaster on American forests and native trees, especially the Sugar Maple and other trees and shrubs in the understory. The Norway Maple, or Crimson King, has no friends on the Internet. When I send Ms. Google out looking for word on this tree, the only thing she can bring back to me is contempt, and shame, and vitriol.

More maple down

This maligned tree, an invasive in the United States, is banned in Massachusetts and New Hampshire. It is shunned in the District of Columbia, as well. Because of its thick canopy and shallow roots, it is a danger to native wild flowers, which won't grow beneath its dark shadow. Its copious seeds, flung far and wide, produce unwelcome progeny that prosper in the absence of natural predators. And it even is purported to poison nearby plants with a vicious toxin that it pumps into the soil around it.

My chairs

Turns out my maple that dropped some pretty significant wood during the storm is progeny of George Washington's mistake. When I called Bonifant Trees to give me an estimate on the clean up from all the storm damage, owner Tom Bonifant told me what kind of maple it was and of its nasty reputation.

Tom, I said, is this tree worth saving?

And Tom, tree-lover Tom, said, "To me, any tree is worth saving." And my heart melted.

Tom and I made plans to save old Norway. All the broken branches were trimmed back. All dying wood was removed. And a cable was installed high up, Philip Pettit-style, between the two dominant branches, so that in a wind storm, the tree would sway as one and not in competition with itself.

Now, I have long loved this tree and I will continue to honor it. Every tree is worthy.

To be sure, I can't be blamed for planting it. It was here when we bought the place. And every year, I've pulled out the whips that have tried to grow from its seed.

But this gorgeous old gal, her gnarled trunk ascends just alongside my deck and shades the table and chairs there. It continues on up to my bedroom window, where it splits into its two branches. It's there that a mother raccoon sometimes sits with her babies in the spring and we all get a wonderful thrill peeking at them (even as we realize that they'll grow up to invade our trash cans and steal the peaches from my peach tree).

But even more significantly, the reason that I love this tree is because I know that she loves me, and my family, and the family next door. Her branches that came down in the storm, I realize, could have so easily fallen and crushed roof tops, even smashed windows. Instead,her branches fell safely, taking out just a portion of our gutter. Easily repaired. No harm, no foul.

Bonifant came this week. He cleaned Ms. Norway up. And miraculously, too, his workers told me that the dogwood over my chair would be just fine, even though her dominant branch had also been severed in the storm. I had planned to cut her down. But she, too, will live to see another spring. And her buds on the remaining branch are plump and full of life.

George Washington, I cannot tell a lie, I saved and now honor a bad, bad invasive tree. But, your mistake is my gain. The Putterer

Garden Fantasies

Aunt Rhody survived the storm.

She's a trooper. Buds all over the place.

Alright. I'm not going to beat around the proverbial bush, the last snow storm really messed up my garden. It's a disaster out there and I'm pissed.

It's bad, I tell you. The shade garden is seriously compromised because the beautiful dogwood branch that formed a ceiling that I've likened to the Sistine Chapel  is busted and broken. We're going to have to just cut her down, that poor old dogwood. And I'm telling you this, when the saw hits the trunk, it's going to feel like I'm slicing my off own leg. The maple over my deck might be hopelessly damaged, too. I can see it has a life-threatening split in one of her main branches. And besides that, I'm in agony about planning a new vegetable garden, knowing full well that That Fucking Deer is just going to come in and eat it all. So I've got some serious gardening issues here.

My inner-Meryl just wants so bad to have a garden like this!

The garden catalogs are arriving and piling up. I won't deny that I have been harboring some serious garden fantasies. I want to be Meryl Streep, complete with well-defined cheek bones and a makeup-free face trooping effortlessly through a weed-free vegetable garden, (you saw the movie "It's Complicated" with Alec Baldwin) plucking from the chard and the squashes and the tomatoes and the lettuces.

I want to wear a breezy white shift with a tie at the waist and a darling sun bonnet and wander aimlessly down perfect paths--Earth goddess like. I want an orchard with ripe fruit that glows from low-hanging branches. I want a grape arbor. I want built-in raised beds. I want colorful containers filled with basil and lavender and sage and parsley arranged artfully on the deck. I want day lilies at every turn.

Sigh. The Putterer

Crape Myrtle in the Snow

The crape myrtle, which lost a branch in the storm,
becomes poetic when captured in Patsy's lens. Photo by Patsy Lieberman

Any Tree in a Storm

Before the storm hit, a dried dahlia
strikes a beguiling pose.

Afternoon light added a sparkle to coneflower,
which is now under a blanket of snow.

The dog and I are comfortably snuggled into the sofa this afternoon. The heat is thrumming, a comforting white noise that we sorely missed these past 24 hours when a storm hit Wednesday night. It knocked out our power and took down several limbs on my maple tree (damaging our gutter). It also severed one of my new dogwoods and crushed one of my old ones.




The dogwood that was crushed was the one that sheltered my chair. Its branch, which is now hanging from the trunk by a woody thread, was the one that literally created the rooftop to my shade garden. The overhead leaf cover was so dense, I could sit in my chair in a light rain and be almost completely protected from any raindrops. The dogwood must have been decades old. It was among the original backyard plantings that came with the house when we bought it 25 years ago.

I've taken on an almost magical, mystical appreciation for trees lately. I feel rather certain that they share something akin to human-like traits and speak to us in ways that are both spiritual and real. I read somewhere that if you were patient with a tree, visited it often, took shelter under its branches, even brought it gifts, it would reward you with a kind gesture or a very real-world acknowledgment. And so I beg of you, don't make fun, but I am a tree hugger. I like to wrap my arms around a tree and place my cheek against its trunk to see if I can feel the pulse of its life, the water surging from deep within its roots as it travels up through its trunk and out to its branches. The temperature of the trunk of a tree is often exactly what I crave, depending on the season. On a hot day, the trunk feels cool to the touch and in the winter, it generates warmth.

The branches of the now-destroyed maple are all strewn about our side property. Some of them are literally the size of a good-size tree. Had they hit our roof, the huge logs would have caused some very serious damage. And yet the space between our houses is little more than a mere 20 feet. How is it that the tree managed to drop its branches into such a narrow passageway, with only a brushing glance to the gutter?

Down the street, a massive American beech tree split during the storm at its apex and fell as if it was trying ever so hard to minimize the damage. A direct hit to either of the houses would have been tragic. At the time, I'm told, the family was upstairs putting their young children to bed. Two massive branches are indeed, lying across the back slope of their roof, but the house remains intact.

A few years ago, I watched from my back window during an afternoon summer storm as a tree split during a brutal wind surge. As it fell, I was certain the tree was consciously twisting and turning, as if it meant to lay itself neatly into the narrow space between the houses. No one was hurt and damage was minimal.

I'm not saying that trees don't cause terrific damage during storms. Of course we know they do and someone did die when a tree fell on their car on Wednesday night. But I wonder, sometimes, if they do try very hard not to. 

So when Jim asked me Wednesday night if I wanted to sleep in the basement in case a tree branch were to fall on our bedroom roof, I told him no. I wanted to sleep in my own bed. And for some reason, I felt safe. The Putterer

Twenty-One Degrees

A tiny January blossom on my vibernum.

It's so cold outside that my hot flashes are lukewarm.

And yet, when I went for a stroll through my garden this morning when the temperature was hovering in the low twenties, I could find vestiges of spring. A tiny pink blossom is timidly showing itself on a viburnum (left) and old Aunt Rhody is sporting tons of buds as if she, like me, is more than ready for winter to end.

All the Christmas decorations got put away two weekends ago, and we took a fast trip down to Austin last weekend with friends for some, drinking, dining, music and warmth (alas it rained both days, oh well). But as we settle into these bitter, cold last days of January, I've begun to think about my next garden.

And I've got budget-busting plans that include deer fencing, built-in and terraced raised beds, and back-breaking transplants. Basically, I'm thinking: tear it up and start over.

Somehow, I'd like to enclose a portion of the backyard, so that my old nemesis, otherwise known as "that fucking deer," can't get in and break my botanical heart with his voracious nibbling. But the yard doesn't want to be easily fenced. There are pre-existing structures that can't be moved and won't look right either inside or outside the fence. If I fence just a portion of my garden, would that look weird in such a small space to create two rooms? And, if I fence the whole backyard, there is not a logical place to bring it to a close, where the gate could go.

But so far, I've got a vision of a high, dark mesh fence held between a series of poured concrete columns that support an arbor-like structure that cantilevers out over all or part of the north side of the property. The entry to the vegetable garden is immediately to left of my stone path at the bottom of the steps. In my minds eye, the gate takes the form of either an elegant Asian design or an English cottage garden style. Where the land slopes a gentle path meanders snakelike between terrace vegetable boxes. Now, instead of just cukes and squash, I'm growing chard and lettuces, carrots and onions and instead of five varieties of tomatoes, I'm able to double that, sampling from all of the heirlooms that I admire in the catalogs.

And now at the back of the property, where my neighbors are growing a beautifully restored native forest, the new fence very much becomes an unwanted barrier, mostly because the exchange of gardening ideas flows freely as I often work side-by-side with my friends back there. And because their garden is an eye-pleasing sight to behold when I'm sitting in my chair.

And then, of course, don't even get me started about what it would all cost. Isn't January gardening grand and glorious? The Putterer

In the Company of Garden Bloggers

In the company of garden bloggers.

These Strangers, in a foreign World,
Protection asked of me --
Befriend them, lest Yourself in Heaven
Be found a Refugee --

Emily Dickinson

Gregarious. I always liked that word. I would rather be among a large crowd of merrymakers than alone. Perhaps that is why social networking feels so natural to me. I know there is plenty to worry about when we share so much of ourselves with so many, who are merely casual acquaintances, or even for that matter, strangers. 

But when we thrust out our hand and introduce ourselves, confident that we are among good company, we make friends of strangers and so this week, I made a lot of new friends when Garden Putter joined a host of other garden bloggers on the new website, BestGardenBlogs.com.

Take for example, my Indonesian friend Kaima Towira, who is an inspired craftsman of bonsai at TohBonsai.com. This is a gallery of his work. My new friend would be horrified at the bonsai work I do in my garden, where one year I planted a Japanese maple in a spot where it could never possibly fit in its mature form. So every spring, I whack its poor top off, while apologizing profusely for the assault. Kaima has been practicing his self-taught art form for two decades and but for blogging and internet networks, I doubt we would ever cross paths.

This morning, I am enjoying reading from a new friend's blog, This Grandmother's Garden. She too has a beautiful rose clinging hopefully to summer in her garden. The difference is, her garden is in the mountains of Utah. The hardy Utah rose hung in through the chill of an icy snowfall, truly The Last Rose of Summer.

And here's Brooke Berry Kroeger of southern Indiana, whose November 7th photograph of the sunrise over her butterfly garden made me want to jump Mary Poppins-style right into the scenery. Brooke's blog is Creative Country Mom's Web Garden and she's my new friend, too. And I've always been inspired, if not a little intimidated by the talent of my local garden blogger friends Susan Harris, Elizabeth Licata, Michelle Owens and Amy Stewart, who rant and rave at Garden Rant. But they're my new friends, too.

So, though we've may have never met in person, I thrust out my hand and my heart to all my gardener friends--Susan Morrison, Jan Huston Doble, Charlotte "Daffodil Planter" Germaine, Anna "FlowerGarden Girl" Looper, Grace Peterson, Sharon Lovejoy, Carolyn Choi, Susan Tomlinson, Eddie Ceyssens, Tyra Hallsenius Lindhe, Kathy Jentz and Paul Nuhn. May there come many more. The Putterer

Rosa Gruss An Aachen: The Last Rose of Summer

Rosa Gruss said "Cheese" for Patsy this morning.
Photo by Patsy Lieberman

I went out to get the paper this morning and there on the stems of my rose bush remain two glorious blooms. Last year, I remember a cone flower that hung in until after Thanksgiving. Looks like our hard freeze once again is delayed thanks to global climate change. 

Rosa Gruss An Aachen is my first successful rose. It also represents my maturity as a gardener. The first roses that I bought and planted failed because I cared more about their evocative names than about their finicky needs.  "Eleanor" and "Passionate Kisses"--may they rest in peace. I had just been up to Hyde Park and toured Eleanor Roosevelt's home and retreat, Val-Kill, and was harboring a secret fantasy that I maybe could have been that great lady's friend and perhaps then, been invited to sit in those comfy chairs she kept in her living room and discussed the events of the day. 

And "Passionate Kisses," well need I say more? What else do you do on the weekends before or after you garden?

But last winter, I decided I'd let a rose chose me instead. Rosa Gruss An Aachen came about in 1909 after a German breeder named Philipp Geduldig paired the imperial Frau Karl Druschki' with the commoner 'Franz Deegan.(And I have no idea if those roses are royal or plebe, I'm just reacting to their names.)

The result was the first of the Floribundas. That term means that big heady roses with multiple petals grow in clusters from a single stem, thus seeming to defy gravity, and making for a very sturdy stem. I selected Gruss (gross name?) because my purveyor, Wayside Gardens, promised it would grow in partial shade. Here's where the maturity part comes in. I have long referred to my front fence garden, by sheer force of will, as a sun garden. It's not. It's not sunny like sunny should be, 6 to 8 hours. It's more like four or five.

Well, Gruss had a will to live, because I nearly killed her too. When the plant arrived in the mail on a Monday, I couldn't tend to her immediate needs. She should have been removed from the packaging and put into water. I stuck her on a dark shelf, still partially packaged and forgot about her until the following weekend. When I planted her, the stems stayed dead-like for what seemed like weeks this spring. And I was fairly certain that I'd failed yet again. But just as Gruss took her sweet time to green up and grow, she now refuses to give it up for winter. So in her honor, I sat on the sofa this morning, tears streaming down my face, listening to the sweet, dulcet tones of the lovely women in the group, Celtic Woman, singing Thomas Moore's 1805 poem, "The Last Rose of Summer."

'Tis the last rose of summer

Left blooming alone;
All her lovely companions
Are faded and gone;
No flower of her kindred,
No rosebud is nigh,
To reflect back her blushes,
To give sigh for sigh.

I'll not leave thee, thou lone one!
To pine on the stem;
Since the lovely are sleeping,
Go, sleep thou with them.
Thus kindly I scatter,
Thy leaves o'er the bed,
Where thy mates of the garden
Lie scentless and dead.

So soon may I follow,
When friendships decay,
From Love's shining circle
The gems drop away.
When true hearts lie withered
And fond ones are flown,
Oh! who would inhabit,
This bleak world alone?