Urban Ecoist

I had originally planned on starting this thread in Early April, but a family thing had me effectively offline all month. So I’ll try to pick up the pieces of my failed planned to keep you all abreast of the developments in my garden and *ahem* plow ahead.

A little background on not only my garden, but also why I have decided to focus on the small garden plots in my yard. I begin with the latter. I do not in any way profess to be an expert gardener, in fact far from it. I am however an eager student and an effective researcher. I am also proving to be a cautionary example of what not to do.

For example, this is what I did to a Spanish lavender bush in my yard.

Yeah, don’t do this at home.

Gardening has become rather fashionable as of late, and in so much that maybe you are starting out in your own garden or starting to think about starting, maybe you can glean some value from reading about my own trials and tribulations in the ol’ victory garden.

Now the former…Perhaps overly ambitious, I began gardening with a bang. I was renting a farm house at the time, and hey, it’s a farm. That first garden became a beast, and ultimately led to a lot of mistakes on my part and on the part of bad luck. My next garden was an easy-to-manage raised bed of 24 square feet. If you take one piece of advice from all of this self-indulgence, start small.

Last year was my first season in Portland, Oregon. I live in a funky yard with a lot of different sun-shade patterns that I clearly did not know before planting. Not only that, but ravenous insects were also a major issue (especially cutworms). I definitely learned a lot from that first year. Also, I should mention that I rent my home (as do many urbanites) , so I am limited in what kind of garden improvements I can make.

That said, I did spend a good part of last season composting for this season. Success in that, and I bought a lot of compost last season and dug it in everywhere I could to try and break up all that effing clay that we have here in Oregon. I was a little underfunded last year, so I couldn’t go crazy with soil testing and the fancier soil amendments. I figured that compost was good as an all-around soil amendment, so I settled on composting as a cheap, effective action I could take for future use.

Also, last year I put in peas — lots of peas. I love peas, and they are seriously the easiest veggie to grow. Not only that, but pea plants fix nitrogen into the soil and if you dig the spent plants into the ground after your harvest, they break down into “green manure.” So, really, if you cannot do anything else this year, put in some peas.

My efforts last year included putting in some herbs. Fresh herbs are so super awesome to have around if you like to cook, or if you just want to impress people (if you are that gardener). I put in sage, chives, flat-leaf parsley, rosemary, and thyme.

Oh, yeah, and I put in twelve strawberry plants. A June-bearing variety (Mount Hood) and an ever-bearing. I read that you shouldn’t let your berry plants produce fruit the first year, which is so hard to do, but I trimmed off all flower heads to prevent fruiting. I am expecting some huge rewards for my herculean test of patience.

And somewhere I read that garlic should go into the ground in the fall, so I put in some garlic bulbs from my kitchen that were starting to grow little crowns. I try to only buy organic garlic, so I hope they were okay to stick in the ground. What’s the worse that can happen, right?

The baby on the right is Carlitos. You can read more about him and other children affected by pesticides here.

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The other day I wrote about the kitchen garden that First Lady Michelle Obama is putting in on the White House grounds, the first garden since the World War II victory garden tended by Eleanor Roosevelt. Mrs. Obama decided to garden after being gently encouraged by a group called Kitchen Gardeners International, and just when you’d think that the First Lady is going to get some respect for doing something like planting some lettuce and peas for White House dinners, another group has taken offense.

The Catch-22 Garden

Seems the organic garden of Mrs. Obama is ruffling some feathers among those that farm the “conventional” way. Ok, is it odd that the way of farming that has been around for thousands of years and lead to the dawn of civilization is not called “conventional”? No, conventional farming is the newfangled less-than-a-century-in-use chemical farming that everyone thought was the answer to all of our species troubles.

Anyway, the Mid America CropLife Association has sent Mrs. Obama a letter asking her to rethink her plans to go organic in her kitchen garden. The main gist of the argument is that chemical “conventional” agricultural practices are good enough for everyone else, so the Obamas don’t need to go starting something.

Here’s a brilliant passage from the letter, which I got from La Vida Locavore.

Starting in the early 1900’s, technology advances have allowed farmers to continually produce more food on less land while using less human labor. Over time, Americans were able to leave the time-consuming demands of farming to pursue new interests and develop new abilities. Today, an average farmer produces enough food to feed 144 Americans who are living longer lives than many of their ancestors. Technology in agriculture has allowed for the development of much of what we know and use in our lives today. If Americans were still required to farm to support their family’s basic food and fiber needs, would the U.S. have been leaders in the advancement of science, communication, education, medicine, transportation and the arts?

We live in a very different world than that of our grandparents. Americans are juggling jobs with the needs of children and aging parents. The time needed to tend a garden is not there for the majority of our citizens, certainly not a garden of sufficient productivity to supply much of a family’s year-round food needs.

Much of the food considered not wholesome or tasty is the result of how it is stored or prepared rather than how it is grown. Fresh foods grown conventionally are wholesome and flavorful yet more economical. Local and conventional farming is not mutually exclusive. However, a Midwest mother whose child loves strawberries, a good source of Vitamin C, appreciates the ability to offer California strawberries in March a few months before the official Mid-west season.

So, chemicals pesticides and fertilizers are responsible for mankind’s advances in other “fields”…ok, sure, I’ll buy that a constant food supply does allow for surpluses, which would in turn lead to wealth that would be able to fund research and the arts. But a lot of studies are showing that there is very little real advantage to conventional farming methods, and that often the health of the soil is degraded over many seasons as the farmers are throwing chemical nutrients into the soil hoping that the plants will absorb them before they leach through the soils into the groundwater supply. If the nutrients are not staying the soil, then the soil turns to dust.

And I love the part at the end about a Midwestern mother be able to give her strawberry-loving child berries in March rather than waiting for the June strawberry season. Come on, that is a poor argument, especially as we start looking at the total carbon footprint of the agricultural industry and see that transporting produce in off-seasons can really add up in terms of carbon emissions. Not only that, but that California strawberry was picked while it was underripe, and underdeveloped nutritionally-speaking, so that it would be perfectly ripe by the time it made its cross-country trip to that Illinois grocery store.

That Midwestern mother would be better off teaching her kid about seasonality and how local produce is more often than not the produce at the peak of its nutritional load. Better yet, she could plant a strawberry patch with her child and then freeze extra berries for March, or make the berries into jam to have all year like my mom did.

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Within days of Michelle Obama breaking ground on the White House’s South Lawn, California’s First Lady Maria Shriver announced that she too will be putting in an “edible garden” in Sacramento’s Capitol Park.

Will the updated “victory garden” become the new black…or rather green?

According to the White House blog, First Lady Michelle Obama and a group of students from Bancroft Elementary School in Washington, DC got out the shovels and starting digging up the South Lawn. They are putting in a vegetable garden complete with herbs, both perennial and annual. You can click here to see a PDF of the somewhat ambitious garden plans. I love the idea to include edible flowers (nasturiums) and beneficial flowers (marigolds, zinnia) to attract or repel insects. So much better than nasty pesticides.

The official story is that it will be the kids working the “kitchen” garden, and I applaud the fact that the crops planned are the easy

“kid-friendly” peas, lettuces, spinach, and onions. There is some room for broccoli and fennel as well. I’m sure there will be a garden staff to help out in addition to the student labor.

The White House Kitchen Garden, as the blog refers to it, is the first such garden at the White House since World War II and Eleanor Roosevelt. The Clintons had a rooftop garden, but this is the first to go in the actual grounds of the White House in some 60 years.

It wouldn’t be fair if I didn’t mention that the WHKG was “suggested” to the Obamas by more than 100,000 petitioners.

More than 100,000 people have lobbied the president online to plant a garden on the White House lawn, according to Kitchen Gardeners International, a coalition of gardeners whose mission is to inspire and teach people to grow their own food. The group’s Eat the View campaign to plant “high-impact gardens in high-profile places” urged the first family to start an edible garden within the first 100 days of the Obama administration. –LA Times

Not to be outdone in green cred, the California First Lady is planning a vegetable garden to be a demonstration garden for the city of Sacramento. Shriver is working with Alice Waters, who is a big advocate for kitchen gardens and local foods and teaching kids to grow things, and her organization, Edible Schoolyard. The plan is to have the garden as a classroom for kids to learn about food and its production.

The White House kitchen garden will provide organic produce for the White House kitchen, appropriately enough. How cool is that? Dignitaries come into town and eat peas from the White House’s personal garden. Take that, Europe. We’re down with veggies here in the US and we even know how to grow them instead of driving our Hummer to the mega-huge-chain grocery store selling GM crops.

The WHKG will also donate to a local food bank, Miriam’s Kitchen. The California Capitol Edible Garden (CCEG) will “probably” be donating to a food bank.

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You may not know about all the chemicals floating around in your house or even your office, and chances are you are not aware of how dangerous some of the Volatile Organic Compounds that are given off by synthethic materials that are found in your home. It’s a process called off-gassing. For example, particle board (that cheap stuff that all cheap furniture is made of) off-gasses formeldahyde. But here’s the deal. Even natural products off-gas, so it’s not like you can ever fully remove VOCs from your home. Anything plastic gives off VOCs, but then wood also gives off gases.

Much like a garden can be a “sink” and a “scrubber” for water and pollutants, your indoor houseplants can help you remove volatile organic compounds (loosely defined by the Environmental Protection Agency as any compound that photoreacts or easily vaporizes and enters the atmosphere. The problem with VOCs in your house is that because you keep your house closed up (especially in colder weather) those VOCs can reach some pretty high levels, even 5 times more than if you were outside.

And your houseplants are effective at removing VOCs from your house. Of course, some plants are better than others. Here’s a top 15 to get you started.

1. Philodendron scandens `oxycardium’, heartleaf philodendron
2. Philodendron domesticum, elephant ear philodendron
3. Dracaena fragrans `Massangeana’, cornstalk dracaena
4. Hedera helix, English ivy
5. Chlorophytum comosum, spider plant
6. Dracaena deremensis `Janet Craig’, Janet Craig dracaena
7. Dracaena deremensis `Warneckii’, Warneck dracaena
8. Ficus benjamina, weeping fig
9. Epipiremnum aureum, golden pothos
10. Spathiphyllum `Mauna Loa’, peace lily
11. Philodendron selloum, selloum philodendron
12. Aglaonema modestum, Chinese evergreen
13. Chamaedorea sefritzii, bamboo or reed palm
14. Sansevieria trifasciata, snake plant
15. Dracaena marginata , red-edged dracaena

That list comes from Clean Air Gardening.

And get this…the study of using plants to clean the air all started with NASA in the 1960’s. The materials used in the enclosed environments in space are synthetic and the VOCs off-gassed were making people sick. An environmental scientist named Wolverton started studying how plants could clean up toxic waste, and he found that simple houseplants can be really effective little cleaners of indoor air pollution. Today, Wolverton’s company is working on using natural materials derived from plants as filters for enclosed environments.

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I was just reading the City of Chicago’s Green Alleyways Handbook, and I came across the idea of building a rain garden to help with storm water runoff. Then I started thinking about it, and with Spring’s showers on the way, now would be a good time for us all to consider building a rain garden in our urban spaces.

Now, obviously, some urbanites will not have the option to construct a rain garden, large or small, as they may not have any yard space at their disposal. It’s not like you can build a container rain garden (or can you?) — but you can find a way to capture your own fair share of rainwater to save from the sewer (but make sure it’s not in a copper bowl like in that one episode of Different Strokes when Dana Plato’s hair turned green), for example, in a rain barrel. But that’s another topic, another day.

Rain gardens are not rocket science, but you do have to do some planning and a little science will come into the project before it’s done. It is best for your back if you already have noticed a spot in your yard where there is a depression where rain water already collects during storms. If you have multiple low-spots, choose areas next to paved areas like patios or roadways or by downspouts. Although remember that you will not want the water too close to your house (within 10 feet) or large trees, either. Sure, a rain garden may be dry 85% of the time, but there is still that other 15% of the time.

A great place to start your planning is a site called Raingardens.org. appropriately enough. It’s a really comprehensive site, which I won’t do justice to by gleaning pertinent info and passing it off as my own, so check it out by clicking here. The organization is based in Western Michigan, but anyone living anywhere can learn from the site’s extensive information.

Whether you have a little space or a lot of space, you give a little something back to the groundwater that supports your life by letting a bit of your garden space work to recharge that groundwater. Rain is filtered naturally through your rain garden, where it finds its way down, down into the deep soil and into the groundwater supply. If it were not for your rain garden, that same storm water may instead find its way into a swollen roadway which picks up all the leaking fluids from cars young and old and then into the sewer system, where it will meet more microbial friends, before being treated at a facility and then returned to your groundwater supply.

Maybe I’m being overly dramatic, but with the inevitable Water Wars coming…start planning now.

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Americans don’t seem all that keen on their fruits and veggies, or at least not as keen as they should be, unless we are talking potatoes. And especially when they eat out, Americans are more concerned about proteins and starches, relegating the veggies to mere side dishes, if included in the meal at all.

And then, add the seasonality of fresh fruits and veggies, and we can see that sometimes eating fresh produce is hard to do, especially if you are on a budget or if you don’t want to purchase imported produce that requires fuel and produced more carbon emissions to ship to your local grocery chain. Also, keep in mind that so-called fresh produce was most likely picked unripe (which means that it did not spend enough time “on the vine” to develop all its healthy nutrients) and has been traveling for a week or more before it even gets to your store.

What’s an urban ecoist to do?

Two options are canned or frozen vegetables and fruits. But which is better?

The canning process involves heating, which will kill any microorganisms that may be living on or in vegetables and fruit. It is very rare that a canned product will carry food-borne illness (which has become a problem with fresh produce lately). However, some nutrients withstand the canning process better than others. Vitamin C and folate are two such nutrients that can be lost during canning.

Frozen produce may be a better choice for most fruits and veggies. Produce undergoes freezing soon after it is picked, so there are less nutrients lost due to age, which may make frozen produce better than some imported “fresh” produce.

Of course, we wouldn’t be very responsible ecoists if we didn’t take some other things into consideration, such as packaging. Cans are highly recyclable and can be reprocessed almost infinitely, but more and more cans are lined with a plastic that contains Bisphenol-A (BPA), which more and more research is showing to leach into foods (especially acidic ones, like tomatoes). Scientists are finding evidence that BPA may cause developmental damage in humans. The EPA is working with some manufacturers to voluntarily reduce BPA use in cans, but I can forecast a day soon when you will be looking for a “no BPA” label on canned goods.

Frozen produce are usually packaged in plastic bags, and the plastic, usually HDPE (#2), used is not as easily recyclable and rarely included in curbside recycling programs. Unfortunately, even the cardboard packaging used with frozen produce is lined with plastic, which also makes it harder to recycle.

Another consideration is where those canned and frozen fruits and vegetables are coming from, and usually that’s a factory farm. Depending on where you live, that can of peas may have traveled thousands of miles to get to your grocery store shelves.

Geez, it’s not easy being green…but if you are serious about it, you may want to can or freeze your own veggies and fruits. When you are at your local farmers market or farm stand this summer, buy larger quantities of fresh produce and process them yourself for winter consumption. Start out freezing fruits like berries, which are easy, and as you become more comfortable and savvy, try your hand at tomatoes.

I remember the cellar at my great-grandfather’s house in Dearborn, Michigan and the shelves stocked with mason jars full of stuff like tomatoes and pickles. He grew everything in his own urban backyard. It’s too bad that as a society, we have become more and more reliant on grocery stores to bring us our produce, when really we could be providing our own — saving money and nutrients at the same time.

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Ask any gardener and they will tell you that perennials make your life a lot easier when it comes to garden chores and plantings. In such, that perennials grow for many years, unlike those prima donna annuals that need to be added every year. If you are an urbanite looking to add perennials to your garden space, then you need take into account the fact that city plants must be able to tolerate city pollution. And considering the lifespan of perennials, shrubs and trees, urban gardeners should take extra care to find hardy species that can withstand air pollution to ensure a healthy garden for years to come.

Perennials

Everyone likes flowers, so today, I’ll concentrate on perennials that produce lovely flowers, as opposed to perennials that are striking for their foliage. Although the three species I have listed below have lovely foliage as well.

Coreopsis: Also called Tickseed. Think of tickseed as a smaller cousin to the sunflower with a lot of small blooms. I had a couple of coreopsis plants and they provided me with a summer’s worth of cut flowers, that last for some time in the house. There are many varieties of Tickseed (the seeds kind of look like ticks, get it?) and some are annuals, so be sure what you are buying, although the annuals do self-seed and can even become invasive if left to their own devices. But we are talking perennials here. Some varieties grow taller than others, but all coreopsis is tolerant of poor soil and little water, a bonus to city gardeners. Although originally a native wildflower, cultivated coreopsis’ do better when divided every few years.

Phlox: I used to take my dogs for walks along this river and into a forest along side of it. We always had a certain destination in mid- to late-summer. There was a grove of wild phlox that created a truly magical atmosphere in this forest, in gently dappled summer sunlight. And the fragrance produced by these striking purple flowers that bloom in clumps is a nice addition to any city garden. If you have a spot that gets a light shade and good circulation, you may want to add phlox. Phlox attract butterflies to your garden as well as being a treat for rabbits, which you may not want, but hey, city rabbits need to eat too. Some varieties are better suited for xeriscaping than others, and some cultivars grow tall while others grow short in mats.

Yarrow: Named after Achilles (achillea) for it’s medicinal properties back in the Trojan War, this perennial is well-known for many good reasons. It grows in poor soil (preferring it even), attracts beneficial insects and seems to make other plants healthy when planted nearby. Yarrow leaves can be added to soups as a bitter green or cooked like spinach. It also just happens to have a lot of really good natural chemicals in it’s flowerheads to help with certain maladies like allergies and even the common cold. Yarrow blooms in the spring and early summer, producing umbrella-like blooms on stems that can be three feet tall in some varieties. The blooms dry really well for cut flowers, or you can try your hand at homeopathy.

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Ah, winter. Snow, ice, nothing green growing in most parts of the US. Winter may mean that we are not actively out working in our gardens, but it doesn’t mean that we cannot plan our gardens. Take advantage of being housebound to daydream about flowers, fruits and what parts of you garden need an overhaul. Lately, I have been thinking about a roadside garden, that is one between either a lawn and the street or between sidewalks and streets. Or you can situate your new garden plot between your lawn area and the sidewalk if the sidewalk abuts the street.

Urban gardening poses its own set of challenges and one of those is higher levels of air pollution. When planning on a new garden space, an overhaul or just a specimen planting or two, set yourself up for success by choosing wisely for you urban garden plot.

Shrubs

Lilac: If you have ever stood downwind from a lilac bush, it is quite the olfactory experience. Lilac can grow in most soils and even poor ones, as long as there is decent enough drainage. Blooms don’t last nearly as long as you’d wish, but if you get a few different varieties, you can extend the lilac season by choosing both early and late blooming varieties. The less you prune, the better, but if you do have to prune, prune right after flowering, as the flowers grow on old wood, so you want to be sure to give them enough time to grow some “old wood” during the summer. Lilac can grow taller than some shrubs, and almost as tall as some trees. Very full growth pattern as well.

Mock Orange: Another fragrant addition to the garden. This shrub blooms in the late spring-early summer into lovely white blossoms that look kind of like smaller camellias to me, or at least some varieties do. The mock orange is so-named as the blossoms almost look like citrus blossoms, and some varieties smell of oranges. Can grow to 8 feet high and six feet wide, and it can become tree-like in its growth pattern.

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So, we have been discussing planning and creating a roadside garden for your city space. These gardens can be either between your lawn and the street or between a sidewalk and the street, depending on what level of urban dwelling you call you own. Of course, often in cities, you may be renting and live in an apartment with no yard whatsoever. We can talk about that, too, in the future, that is how to create “temporary” garden spaces.

I have already mentioned that urban gardens must be able to tolerate higher levels of air pollution than, say, a country home’s garden (depending on the country house, unfortunately, it seems that no where is clean).

When planning a garden space in such an area, you may or may not want to incorporate taller plants such as trees and schrubs. But with taller plants, you can create a bit of privacy for your front yard, an urban oasis if you will. Not only that, but you can create a screen for that car-generated pollution, in addition to a nice spot for birds, bees and butterflies.

Shrubs

Trees can be a bit much — too tall or too wide for many smaller urban spots, so luckily, there are some really fabulous shrubs and bushes out there that are both evergreen and deciduous and can withstand urban pollution.

Butterfly Bush: I love butterfly bushes (left). They can grow tall and hedge-like, or you can prune them severely and grow them smaller. In addition to attracting this bush’s namesakes, hummingbirds also dig the butterfly bush. The flowers grow out on graceful arching branches and they are quite fragrant. They make super cut flowers in the house, and the more you cut, the more purple or pink flowers these bushes will produce.

Forsythia: Forsythias are wonderful and a welcome sign of spring. This shrub breaks out of the “new season” gate with bare branches that load up with little yellow flowers very early in the spring. Forsythias are easy growers and easily pruned back to whatever space you want them to fill with vibrant green leaves. They also live for a very long time if cared for, properly. The picture above is a forsythia bush that is over 50 years old.

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Yesterday, I began to list trees that would be a nice addition to an urban garden, especially a garden that is situated alongside the road. Cars generate a lot of air pollution, and some plants and trees can withstand higher and more concentrated levels of air pollution, so why not set yourself for success when planning a new garden plot (or replanting an already existing space) and make the right choice of tree to add to your garden.

More Trees

Fringe Tree: A pretty smaller tree that grows from 12 to 20 feet with a 10 to 20 feet spread. It is also a slow grower, so you can plant one and sit back for a while without having to prune it back heavily in order to keep it appropriate for a smaller urban space. Also, it grows wide and loosely, so it shouldn’t create too much shade for other plants in the plot. It flowers in the spring, and produces blue fruit in the fall. Oh, yeah, and birds like the fruit, so that is always a bonus.

The fringe tree (at above left and right) gets its name from the fringe-like flowers it produces in profusion in the early spring.

The Double Almond: Another early bloomer and the double means that there are double the petals on the flowers, so they are fuller and frilly and a welcome sight in spring. The almond is a member of the rose family, so the little flowers look like little roses in a way. And yes, the almond tree produces almonds, and almonds are not only tasty, but good for you. The tree needs bees to pollinate, so your prunus dulcis would also be a good attraction to bees, which are good for everything else in your garden, too.

You can see some almond trees in an orchard in the picture above. They are smaller, growing about 15 feet tall.

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Yesterday, the idea of creating a small garden plot in an urban environment next to a road was introduced, and today, I’d like to expand on that roadside urban garden plot in terms of plants that you might consider adding to a garden plot that will have to tolerate air pollution.

It is best to plan out the big plantings first, so let’s first talk about what is most likely going to be the biggest type of “plant” you could choose to plan your garden around.

Trees

Depending on your urban space, you may not have the option to plant trees. Trees can be very big and may block sidewalks or roads, or they may have to be trimmed to not touch power lines. This can become a headache for you, so be sure to check out to see not only how much space you have in the garden, but also what kind of space in which a tree will be able to grow.

With that in mind, I have a large space in my front yard, and it is currently a wasteful grassy lawn. I have garden spots along fences and walkways in addition to spaces around the house. But my yard just drops off down a slope (Portland, Oregon is rather hilly being situated between two mountain ranges), and is totally boring until it ends at the street.

However, just because I have lots of space in which to grow a tree, I must also be careful to not diminish any of the afternoon sun on my southwest facing yard. Luckily, due to the house and fences being up on a small hill, even a taller tree shouldn’t create too much shade until later in the evening.

But also once I commit to adding a taller and fuller (i.e. wider) tree, I will have to plan the remaining space as a shade garden.

If you still want to plant a tree or two in your roadside garden, here are some species you may want to consider. These trees tolerate air pollution rather well, so adding these trees will not only act as a shield for your yard from some of that pollution, but they can also dampen the sound of traffic (noise pollution if you think about it) from the road. And…if that weren’t enough, a tree can provide a little privacy for your front yard.

Holly : An evergreen (above and at left) that bears striking leaves and dramatic red berries in the autumn and into winter. The Highclere variety is a good one to pick as it grows in a narrow, compact shape so it won’t take up too much space or create a lot of shade for other plants. It grows to 25 feet tall and 10 feet wide. Holly also provides a good habitat for wildlife, as it keeps its leaves all year, and as those leaves are rigid and pointy, hollies are sought by birds for natural defense. Can also be grown as a hedge.

Serviceberry: Also called shadbush (named this because it would bloom around the time the shad, a fish, would make its annual run) and sarvisberry among other names, the serviceberry (at right) is a useful tree to have around. Some species grow shorter than others, but the trees produce pretty flowers and lots of them in the spring.

A nice added benefit is that the “service” berries are edible. Birds love the berries and if you want, there are lots of recipes out there for everything from serviceberry wine to jellies, jams and relishes. As an example, the Allegheny Serviceberry can grow to 20 feet tall and 20 feet wide, but if you look at the picture to the right, you see it is not compact in its growth pattern, so shade should be light.

Tomorrow, more trees…

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If you cannot tell what is on my mind lately by reading a recent post, then you should know that there is something about winter that brings out the dreamer in me in terms of what I will be doing in my small urban garden this next season. As a city dweller, I am a renter and as such, my dreams for my little garden will most likely never be realized as who knows how long I will live in this house, and hi, it’s not my house, so I don’t get to call the shots on major garden design and projects.

So, maybe someone out there can glean something from my grandiose plans for the grandiose problems that I have in “my” yard. I always believe in leaving a yard in better shape than that in which I found it, so my planning tends to go below the surface in many aspects of garden design. And if I were to undertake a major project this next spring, it would be to build and plant a raised bed garden along the roadside of my front yard. It would reduce noise from the street, increase privacy and add more plants that could be attractive to both wildlife and insects.

The first thing you should consider when building a roadside urban garden is that these plants are on the front lines of pollution from cars. I live on a quiet street that doesn’t not see much traffic, but many urbanites live on busy thoroughfares and should take pollution generated from traffic into consideration when choosing the plants you will use in your roadside garden.

And like the “garden” above, there is no reason that you cannot have a little roadside garden. It may have to be a container (or many, many containers), but hey, it’s still a garden.

urban garden, gardening, pollution, roadside garden, plants, design, planning

January. The cold, the snow, the ice, the cabin fever. Other than the inordinate amount of video games that I play over the winter, I also begin planning out what I will be doing in the garden this next season. I look through seed catalogs, garden supply catalogs, books on garden design, reference books on perennials. I really do spend too much time on my garden plans, but planning in advance can save you a lot of work in the future.

Speaking of the future, or possibly the present for some of us around the country in those regions experiencing drought conditions, water is quickly becoming a scarce commodity. And besides, who likes spending all that time watering the garden? That’s time I could spend in the hammock.

Let me introduce you to xeriscaping, or garden design that requires little supplemental water and produces little waste. It’s one of those made up words using Greek to make it sound all sciency, xeros meaning zero and scape which pertains to a landscape or an area of land. Roughly translated, “dry scene” landscaping uses plants that are native to the area, and if the area happens to be an area like Southern California, those native plants are naturally drought-resistant. Otherwise, they sure couldn’t be natives.

Check with your local nursery to see what they have available that’s native and needs little to no additional irrigation that what it would get from normal precipitation patterns (of course, every summer has a dry spell in which you will have to water everything, but normally, you shouldn’t have to water these plants every day.

Even if you are in an area in which water is not a problem, you should still consider planting species in your garden that don’t require a lot of extra water. Save the water for your veggie garden. You can get lovely flowers and ornamentals in the colors of the rainbow that are also drought-resistant. Save on your water bill or your water table out in the country.

A few examples of drought-resistant annuals

Zinnia

Marigold

Cosmos

Moss Rose

A few examples of drought-resistant perennials

Sedum

Yarrow

Purple Coneflower aka Echinacea

Iris

Hens and Chicks

Phlox

Culinary herbs like sage, thyme, lavender, and rosemary

xeriscaping, drought-resistant, gardening, gardens, water, watering, irrigation, garden design, landscaping, plants, annuals, perennials

If you haven’t run across something about Guerrilla Gardening before now, let me introduce you to the concept and the group. There is a website, that is based in Britain, even though it has members from around the world. So if the site seems too British-y, the guy behind GG is a Brit, so many of the projects covered are London-based.

Guerrilla gardening is kind of like squatting, except that it will be plants, not yourself, in a seemingly abandoned urban space, that is not a building. Let’s say your neighborhood has a curb space that no one looks after, or an oddly placed and unused planter by an older school that is no longer in use. Well, do you think anyone would mind if you put in a few marigolds?

For the most part, people don’t mind.

It is a pleasant way to vandalize someone else’s property. I’d recommend finding a spot to adopt. I live in Portland, Oregon and it is hard to find an abandoned plot of land that doesn’t have something cool growing in it already, but while living in Chicago, I could find spaces with no problem. Choose drought-resistant varieties of plants, so that you don’t have to water it constantly. You should not expect the neighbors to look after your plot — some may, but don’t rely on that resource to keep the plants alive.

Obviously, check out the spot for how much sunlight it receives, because some plants like shade and some like sun. Think easy gardening. There is no reason to put in finicky places. These spaces may have poor, compacted soil, so find those species that don’t mind poor or average soil. Think food, too, and put in easy to grow veggies here and there. Check out ideas in companion planting for ideas. But again, this is not your space, so if you cannot get there everyday, don’t set your plot up for failure. That will make people sad, not happy, and the whole point of putting in flowers is to make people happy. They may not know it, but it will.

Sneak out in the middle of the night with spade and plants. Maybe dress up like a ninja…

Oh, yeah, and it is technically illegal, so don’t get caught.

guerrilla gardening, urban spaces, abandoned, land, garden plot, soil, plants, Portland, Oregon, Chicago

I ran across this on the Care2 network. I don’t think I am going out on a limb by assuming that many Urban Ecoists out there have gardens or at least a few pots of things growing. Why not help out in the Great Sunflower Project and count bees this next growing season?

It’s really quite simple, or so the website claims. This will be my first year participating, so if anyone participated last season, leave a comment or two describing your own experience if you are so inclined.

The Great Sunflower Project is meant to study the health of the urban bee. It is well documented that bees are disappearing in the wild and in agricultural areas, and as bees are a very valuable resource for pollinating many of the things we eat and use in our daily lives, the health of bee populations could not be more important. Studies focus on the wild bees, but fewer studies have looked at the health of urban bee populations.

We know that pollinators are declining in certain wild and many agricultural landscapes. However, little is known about urban pollinators. Our recent data on bumble bees in an urban setting suggests that urban bees may also be declining (McFrederick & LeBuhn 2006, Fenter and LeBuhn submitted). While the loss of these pollinators is important, it is more important to understand what effect these losses have had on pollinator services.

We do not know much about how healthy bee populations are maintained in an urban environment. Because natural habitats are uncommon in urban landscapes, they may not provide enough resources to support viable pollinator communities. However, if other habitats, such as urban gardens and restored areas, are sufficiently connected to natural habitat, then native populations may thrive. — The Great Sunflower Project

I tend to advocate making your urban garden a home to all things wild and helpful, so putting in a sunflower or two, in addition to the beauty they bring, will also bring bees to your garden. The bees will pollinate everything else you grow or let grow, and in return you get vegetables, fruit, and seeds for your next season.

If you join the Great Sunflower Project, you will receive seeds for a wild, native sunflower variety called the lemon queen. Plant the seeds (sunflowers are notoriously easy to grow from seed) and sit back. You can plant the sunflower in pots if you don’t have traditional garden space. While sitting back enjoying your garden, write down how many bees come to the flowers on your sunflowers. Make a note of what time of day, the temperature, and the date. That’s all there is to it. You enter the data on the website under your account. The Project is specifically interested in how long it takes five bees to visit a single plant. And if you can identify the type of bee, even better.

So get the kids involved in this one. The website offers lot of interesting info on bees of all shapes and sizes, as well as how to attract more bees to your garden. There is also resources for teachers and students.

urban garden, city garden, bees, honeybees, pollination, colony collapse disorder, wild bees, bee health, flowers, vegetables, seeds, sunflower, great sunflower project, kids, gardening