Photos of ideas

A lot of the pictures I take are of ideas: Bits of design, combinations of plants -- cool stuff I want to remember to play with in my own garden. And half the time I never go back to those pictures and actually DO anything with them. Blogging projects are always a good way to make me actually do something I've long been thinking about, so I'm going to do a series of posts with photos that represent some cool gardening idea to me.

 To start off: This image I took in the summer of 2005 when I was working as an intern at a nursery in Saitama, Japan.

 (Do click on the image to view it full size -- it is better that way)
This garden is in front of a small, neighborhood shrine, and perfectly creates the quiet, restful, sacred atmosphere appropriate for this space. If I was gardening this space, I think I would be tempted to throw in variegated foliage, or a few slashes or flowers -- but the restrained colors really work, and play up the gorgeous contrasts in texture. And the stone trough it just about perfect -- again, simple, but not boring. Just enough decoration, the color nicely matching the stones set around it. As you can only sort of see in this picture, it is filled with still water, which I love. No trickling waterfall or fountain -- just placid water.

Best of all, like so many Japanese gardens, this one is tiny, and so could easily translate to the smallest yard. I want to create a small, peaceful, sacred nook like this in my garden. I just need to figure out where.

Are specialty nurseries dying?

I got my copy of Asiatica's spring catalog the other day, which opens with a chatty letter from the owner. This year, a fairly depressing one, starting with "For most merchants in the specialty nursery business, [2009] was a difficult year." and going on to say: "If it wasn't clear before, it is clear now that there is no sound economic basis for introducing and selling new and rare plants."

Arrowhead Alpines' catalog doesn't start out much more cheerfully: The headline on their first page is "Still Alive" and includes this: "All the better specialty nurseries are struggling and we hope that out customers and friends will continue to support our efforts to provide cool new plant material. For that matter support our competition as well. It is depressing how many great nurseries have gone in the last couple of years."

Even the perpetually upbeat Tony Avent of Plant Delights writes in his nursery's current newsletter:
"The economy continues to devastate the nursery industry, and the latest casualty is Green Valley Growers of Willis Texas. Green Valley Growers was the 59th largest nursery in the country with 300 acres and one million square feet of greenhouse production. There are many other large growers who are still hanging on while operating in Chapter 11 or Chapter 12 bankruptcy ... we wish them the best in trying to save their businesses."

I wonder -- and worry -- if these nursery struggles are just one more side effect of the hard economic times, or a sign of a longer term trend. I hope not. I can't imagine a world without catalogs packed with amazing plants I've never heard of and long to grow... I hope all my beloved suppliers make it through the hard times, and thrive for years to come. I'll even add a little bit to my orders, just to do my part.

But I think -- and hope -- that brighter times are ahead. Gardening is becoming trendy! I know right now it is just vegetable gardening -- but surely those people lured into the garden by vegetables will be drawn ever deeper into plant addiction, and soon finding themselves ordering rare Japanese Asarum. The rise of the internet, which is not only the ultimate gardening reference book, but also a source for plant-lust inducing blogs, and virtual gardening communities, will surely help fuel the rise and passion of gardeners across the country and the world. I think gardening is poised to follow the path of the "foodie" scene, and explode into mainstream America.

What do you think? Is gardening on the rise? Are specialty nurseries doomed?

Wednesday Links:

Biofortified has an excellent review of a new book by Stewart Brand (of Whole Earth Catalog fame) in which he advocates a new, pragmatic, science-based, environmentalism -- they include this quote from the book: “Cities are green. Nuclear energy is Green. Genetic engineering is Green."

Following up on that, here is an article by the fore mentioned Stewart Brand on why cities, even slums (perhaps especially slums)  may be the greenest way to live.

For all the feminists who read my blog (Redhead, Anna): The Inelegant Gardener links to a news reel from the 60s about a "lady gardener" including this priceless comment about one of her tools, described as being  "as easy to operate as pushing a pram - another pursuit at which the ladies excel". Also follow her link to a side-splitting youtube video titled "Women: Know your Limits."

The Galloping Gardener (who surely produces the best garden porn on the internet) does a post on a garden at... a dump. Of course, she, being British, calls it a "rubbish" rather than "trash" or "garbage" which makes it sound ever so much more appealing.

On the Gardening Gone Wild blog, a post on TINY flower arrangements caught my eye. I tend to make arrangements with amounts of flowers measured in fist fulls, but these dramatically downsized arrangements are delightful -- they marvelously highlight the tiny gems in the garden that are too easy to over look.

By way of Studio G, comes this Lifehacker post on making solar-powered lights out of jars - I'm not personally nuts about the jars themselves, but the basic idea is really exciting to me: buy cheap solar lights, take them apart, and rework them into lights of your own creation! I've been wanting to incorporate more non-plant items in my garden this year -- maybe I'll start with this...

Another story on Dave Clark's studies on the genetics on flower fragrance -- in this one, he claims it is a breakthrough to developing genetically engineered fragrant flowers. I have my doubts: They have identified a DOZEN different genes that together create the petunia fragrance. Genetic engineering could easily stick in one or two of those into a new plant -- resulting in something which would be far from a complex or interesting scent. At best, the result would be something like cheap, artificially flavored processed food, but nothing like the complexity and depth of nature.

 My back 40 Feet posts about a terrific guerrilla garden -- it is really quite lovely. Seeing it is convincing me that I AM going to do some guerrilla gardening this year. There is a pitiful, weed-infested island in the middle of a traffic circle up the street that I AM going to do something with this year.