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Trowel & Glove: Marin gardening calendar for the week of Dec. 29, 2012 – Marin Independent

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Marin

West Marin Commons offers a weekly harvest exchange at 1:30 p.m. Saturdays at the Livery Stable gardens on the commons in Point Reyes Station. Go to www.west marincommons.org.

Volunteers are sought to help in Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy nurseries from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Wednesdays at Muir Woods or 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. Wednesdays or 9 a.m. to noon Saturdays in the Marin Headlands. Call 561-3077 or go to www.parks conservancy.org/volunteer. $5. Call 457-6045.

John Valenzuela of the Golden Gate Chapter of the California Rare Fruit Growers speaks about “Choosing the Best Fruit to Grow” at a Marin Master Gardeners program at 7 p.m. Jan. 3 in the Livermore Pavilion at the Marin Art Garden Center at 30 Sir Francis Drake Blvd. in Ross. $5. Call 473-4204 or go to www.crfg.org or www.cornucopiafood forest.com.

Growing Excellence in Marin (GEM), a program providing horticultural vocational training for Marin residents with disabilities, has a weekly plant sale from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Fridays at 2500 Fifth Ave. in San Rafael. Items offered include garden plants, potted plants, cut flowers and microgreens. Call 226-8693 or email michael@connectics.org.

The SPAWN (Salmon Protection and Watershed Network) native plant nursery days are from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Fridays and weekends. Call 663-8590, ext. 114, or email jonathan@tirn.net to register and for directions.

A free Marin Bee Company workshop, “The Basics of Beekeeping,” is at 11 a.m. Jan. 5 at Whole Foods Market at 790 De Long Ave. in Novato. Call 878-0455 or go to www.marinbee company.com/workshops.html.

Marin Open Garden Project (MOGP) volunteers are available to help Marin residents glean excess fruit from their trees for donations to local organizations serving people in need and to build raised beds to start vegetable gardens through the Micro-Gardens program. MGOP also offers a garden tool lending library. Go to www.opengardenproject.org or email contact@opengardenproject.org.

Marin Master Gardeners and the Marin Municipal Water District offer free residential Bay-Friendly Garden Walks to MMWD customers. The year-round service helps home-owners identify water-saving opportunities and soil conservation techniques for their landscaping. Call 473-4204 to request a visit to your garden.

San Francisco

The Conservatory of Flowers, at 100 John F. Kennedy Drive in Golden Gate Park, displays permanent galleries of tropical plant species as well as changing special exhibits from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Tuesdays through Sundays. $2 to $7; free on first Tuesdays. Call 831-2090 or go to www.conservatoryofflowers.org. Volunteers are sought to serve as docents and school tour Jungle Guides at the conservatory. A new seven-week training program begins on Jan. 9. Call 637-4326 or email efrank@sfcof.org for details and to register.

The San Francisco Botanical Garden Society, at Ninth Avenue and Lincoln Way in Golden Gate Park, offers several ongoing events. $7; free to San Francisco residents, members and school groups. Call 661-1316 or go to www.sfbotanicalgarden.org. Free docent tours leave from the Strybing Bookstore near the main gate at 1:30 p.m. weekdays, 10:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. weekends; and from the north entrance at 2 p.m. Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Groups of 10 or more can call ahead for special-focus tours.

Around the Bay

Cornerstone Gardens is a permanent, gallery-style garden featuring walk-through installations by international landscape designers on nine acres at 23570 Highway 121 in Sonoma. Free. Call 707-933-3010 or go to www.corner stonegardens.com.

The Trowel Glove Calendar appears Saturdays. Send high-resolution jpg photo attachments and details about your event to calendar@marinij.com or mail to Home and Garden Calendar/Lifestyles, Marin Independent Journal, 4000 Civic Center Drive, Suite 301, San Rafael, CA 94903. Items should be sent two weeks in advance. Photos should be a minimum of 1 megabyte and include caption information. Include a daytime phone number on your release.

The Luther Burbank Home at Santa Rosa and Sonoma avenues in Santa Rosa has docent-led tours of the greenhouse and a portion of the gardens every half hour from 10 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Tuesdays through Sundays. $7. Call 707-524-5445.

McEvoy Ranch at 5935 Red Hill Road in Petaluma offers tips on planting olive trees and has olive trees for sale by appointment. Call 707-769-4123 or go to www.mcevoyranch.com.

Wednesdays are volunteer days from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Occidental Arts and Ecology Center at 15290 Coleman Valley Road in Occidental. Call 707-874-1557, ext. 201, or go to www.oaec.org.

Quarryhill Botanical Garden at 12841 Sonoma Highway in Glen Ellen covers 61 acres and showcases a large selection of scientifically documented wild source temperate Asian plants. The garden is open for self-guided tours from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. daily. $5 to $10. Call 707-996-3166 or go to www.quarryhillbg.org.

Kyu Asakura’s garden of wealth and privilege

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Speaking personally, though likely for many readers, one of the nice things about living in the modern age is that many of the homes and estates of the wealthy and privileged have been opened to folk from the lower orders, meaning we can now freely clod-hop through their elegant drawing rooms and gawp at their heirlooms and art works.

In Japan, of course, clod-hopping becomes sock-hopping, because of having to remove outer footwear before entering any home — let alone one boasting the polished zelkova or cherrywood flooring of heritage villas and grand residencies.

The lobbies of these homes are typically spacious, with a stone floor laid beneath a wooden deck, where footwear is dealt with. In cases when owners commissioned the construction of particularly impressive gardens, the convention was to step onto a kutsu-nugu-ishi (shoe-removing stone) before gaining a purchase on even the lobby flooring of the residence proper.

These days, you are more likely to see these large, semi-flat rocks at the rear of the house. This is the case at the Kyu Asakura Residence in Tokyo’s Daikanyama district, a fashionable quarter of the central Shibuya Ward. The home and garden, commissioned in 1919 by Torajiro Asakura, a chairman of the then Metropolitan Assembly, are just a five-minute walk from the station.

Yet if ancient gardens were the dwellings of the gods, those from the period spanning the Meiji and Taisho eras (1868-1926) were conspicuously grandiose adjuncts to the residences of the powerful and affluent. Hence, the shoe-removing stone past which those entering the main garden at the Kyu Asakura Residence must go is more like a transplanted slab of shoreline than a rock.

Such hints of hubris were characteristic of landscapes of those eras, designs that were commissioned by rising industrialists, politicians and the new order of aristocracy created by the awarding of titles such as baron and marquis to a chosen few.

Indeed, imposing and ostentatious stones such as Kyu Asakura’s can be seen elsewhere in gardens of a similar age. In the case of the Maeda Residence’s garden in the capital’s Komaba district of Meguro Ward, a crane and a truck were used to carry the shoe-removing stone from the family’s Hongo home across the city in Bunkyo Ward to the sumptuous villa they had built in 1929.

Again, looking at this period in garden design for the wealthy, a similarly massive stone is prominent at the Iwasaki Mansion built in 1896 just a few minutes’ walk from city-center Ueno Station in Tokyo. Designed by British architect Josiah Conder for the founding family of the Mitsubishi conglomerate, this residence also displayed a taste for oversize garden features, notably its tall chozubachi (water-laver basins) that were a symbol of affluence in that period. There are other similar examples of these at the Rakujuen Garden in Mishima, Shizuoka Prefecture, and down the road from there at the Kiunkaku Villa in coastal Atami.

The stone lanterns of the Kyu Asakura Garden demonstrate a similar fascination, or identification, with the gargantuan. The dominant style here is the nigatsudo (pedestal) type, a very solidly designed object that brings to mind a huge stone lantern at the Kyu Furukawa Residence in the Komagome district of Toshima Ward. In both cases, though these ornaments may tend to look like miniature lighthouses, their very scale serves to ground the central building itself.

Yet moderating any unseemly whiffs of pride is the landscaping itself, with much of Kyu Asakura’s rear garden built on a bluff above a dell, bringing to mind the Gotoh Museum’s garden in the Kaminoge district of Setagaya Ward. Natural forms like this are godsends for garden designers, who might otherwise have to haul in tons of earth to create interesting landforms.

In the Kyu Asakura Garden, winding and undulating paths run beneath a thick canopy of trees, screening off any potentially intrusive elements. Water basins, large rocks, smaller rounded stones and roof tiles embedded beside paths add rustic touches that evoke some of the aesthetics of the tea garden.

Knowledge of the tea ceremony, the architecture of tearooms and the principals of the tea garden were once considered the acme of sophistication. Commenting on this phenomena, the renowned Meiji Era art critic Okakura Kakuzo (1862-1913) went as far as asserting, “Teaism is a cult founded on the adoration of the beautiful among the sordid facts of everyday existence.”

Leafy dell: Stone placements alone impinge the naturalism beautifully fostered here.

The route amid the greenery and along the path of the tea garden was meant to be transformative, a cleansing process. In this spirit, the Kyu Asakura Garden certainly provides a counterworld to the one experienced beyond its walls — even in this relatively quiet corner of the city.

One feature of gardens in the Meiji and Taisho eras, manifest also in the early Showa Era (1926-89), was a fascination with Western-style naturalism expressed in the use of lawns, large amounts of vegetation and fully matured trees. The pathways meandering through the Kyu Asakura Garden are set at different levels in the wooded dell, creating a sense of spatial depth.

Meanwhile, space here flows in much the same way as light: fluidly, following its own contours and circulations. Akin to walking along the roji pathways in tea gardens, the density of foliage, and well-placed stones, promotes a sensation of detachment from the urban domain. This in turn engenders a mood of refined introspection.

If the stillness of this garden owes much to its location, the sounds it produces also enhance its tranquility. Chinese gardens were the first, perhaps, to incorporate certain audio effects that would deepen the poetry of the experience.

Hence plants were enlisted for their acoustic properties, with broad-leaved varieties placed where rain or wind on them could be heard. The serenity of nature could be further replicated by planting Chinese parasol trees beneath a window, or a plantain grove in a corner of a wall where its rustling in the breeze could be heard.

Pines were similarly installed for the sound of air passing through the branches, an effect compared to the soughing of wind in a remote mountain valley, while giant bamboo was used for its creaking in the moving air. Similar audio effects, along with insect sounds in certain seasons, can be heard in the Kyu Asakura Garden.

In his “Song of Meditation,” the Zen monk and poet Hakuin Ekaku (1686-1768) wrote of the joys of “unobstructed repose.” For urban dwellers, the temporary sanctuary of the Kyu Asakura Garden provides just the right counterbalance to the negative forces generated by cities.

A lucky few, however, may find that the state of suspended thrall created by such gardens, the contact with nature and its plenitude, turn out to be less escapism than connection.

Landscaping the doors of perception in Japan

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Although the term zen-tei (Zen garden) exists in Japanese, its usage is a largely Western one, first coined by the American garden scholar Lorraine Kuck in the 1930s. In the work of designer Shunmyo Masuno, a fully ordained Buddhist priest, we encounter landscapes that endorse Daisetz T. Suzuki’s view that the stone garden embodies “the spirit of Zen.”

Masuno, who practices meditation as a first step toward design, may conceivably, be the last of Japan’s ishitate-so, or “stone-setting priests,” a body of semiprofessionals once tasked with assembling gardens, although his responsibilities for creating design and overseeing the construction of his ideas far exceed the brief of those humble ecclesiastical gardeners.

Things are never quite what they seem in the Zen garden. Emptiness might best be described as empowered space, an energized vacuum; what the writer Donald Richie referred to as the “nourishing void.” Masuno emphasizes the need to familiarize himself with the project site, to “listen” to the request of stones and to sensitize himself to the forces flowing through the landscape.

In his work, compositions are never imposed on space, the sites to some degree dictating design and stone placement. Design of this transcendent quality is rare, issuing from a combination of kankaku (sensitivity) and kunren (practice and discipline). When the two are fused, as they manifestly are in Masuno’s work, spatial design ascends to the level of art.

Masuno’s work bears some comparison with the gardens of iconoclastic landscape designer Shigemori Mirei, whose highly original concepts and use of materials split the garden establishment into detractors and devotees. Like Mirei, Masuno is a traditionalist with a modernist vision, possessed of an extraordinary wellspring of ideas and design approaches that are evident in the diversity of his projects and the pliability required to adjust to each commission. The book accordingly showcases designs for temples, a retreat house, science research center, prefectural library, private residence, golf club, hotel, crematorium and more.

Like finely crafted musical instruments, gardens can improve immeasurably with age. The risks, of course, of creating gardens for commercial entities rather than time immemorial temples or villas protected by their Important Cultural Property rankings, is that they are subject to market fluctuations that can force radical land transformation.

Mira Locher’s concisely organized text and painstaking research into her subject steers the layman through a potentially Byzantine web of principals and design concepts. Given the close relationship between Japanese gardens and structural forms, Locher, a practicing architect of high repute, is well placed to comment on the subject of landscape design.

Unlike ancient gardens, with their embedded meanings, contemporary designers are generally quite comfortable spelling out the meaning of their work. Thus, we know unequivocally that Masuno’s ryumonbaku (“dragon’s gate waterfall”) at Gion-ji Temple, represents the idea of Zen training toward enlightenment, or that the name of its courtyard garden invokes the theme of water, analogous to knowledge and teachings trickling down through the ages. Locher doesn’t give away too much, however, leaving enough concealed to stimulate reader inquiry.

This finely illustrated and written work reminds us that the Japanese garden is an organic form that is constantly evolving. So much so that the garden writer Yang Hongxun has opined, “China could make use of many of these Japanese standards to modernize her own garden construction, which has fallen behind in recent times.”

The book includes a number of landscapes created for foreign clients. Examining these overseas creations, we realize that with careful consideration to climate and plant environments, the Japanese garden is a truly transcultural art.

Plot your year in the garden with our beginner’s guide to growing vegetables

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If you don’t already grow your own veg, now is the time to convert – at the beginning of a new year.

In the past, it was widely accepted and widely practised. If you had a bit of garden or an allotment in wartime or post-war Britain then you would almost certainly have grown some of your own food. My grandad not only had an allotment but also turned over the greenhouse behind their home to tomatoes.

There was a whole border full of rhubarb, too – a worthwhile, easy and productive crop and a great place to hide when you are really little.

What was a necessity for lots of people back then has now become a trend – but one that is increasingly important in these times of austerity.

I’m not suggesting Mr Osborne should start a Feed Yourselves campaign – that would be far too sensible. But once you’ve tasted your own home-grown produce, supermarket vegetables come a very poor second.

When Neil and I moved from London to Glebe Cottage 34 years ago, one of my ambitions was to grow vegetables. Though neither of us had any previous experience, within a couple of years we had a thriving patch and by the time our daughters came along there was plenty for everyone. Eventually, raising herbaceous plants for my nursery and for flower shows had to take priority.

Some gardeners are apprehensive about growing their own, but there’s no reason to be. People have been growing their own food from the very moment they decided to stay in one place and put down roots. When you sow your first beans or plant out your potatoes you are joining a tradition that goes back to the earliest days of civilisation.

Seeds want to grow. Plants want to produce leaves, roots, flowers and seeds. All we have to do is give them the conditions they need, weed them, water and nurture them and harvest and eat them. What could be easier?

Make the space

One of the major drawbacks many of us envisage is not having enough space to accommodate anything worth growing or eating.

But even a tiny patch, managed imaginatively, can provide fresh vegetables throughout the year.

A 10ft x 10ft patch, especially if it’s a deep bed, can produce something fresh right through the season. So whatever the size of your garden – and even if you don’t have a garden – growing your own is a viable option.

The more limited your space, the more important it is to grow the vegetables you like best. So make a list of your favourites, work out how they could grow together and get sowing.

Find the time

Most of us have busy lives and may have misgivings about how much time our vegetables are going to need. But the hard work is in setting up the plot – and you can think of that as great post-Christmas exercise. After that, it should be plain sailing.

There are very few fussy crops, most of the time it’s a question of raking the soil, sowing seed and keeping the plot watered and weeded.

Spring tends to be busiest although, if you are growing successionally there will be veg to sow and transplant all season.

Sometimes, working out a plan takes as much time as executing it.

Try to fit the size of the area under cultivation to the time you have. There is no point taking on a huge space, full of perennial weeds, if you have only a — couple of hours each weekend to knock it into shape. Vegetables don’t need much fussing over, but they do need consistent attention – half an hour after work each day should be enough. You’ll probably find yourself still there much later, though. Growing veg is moreish.

Enjoy the rewards

When you are beginning, success is all important, so concentrate on easy crops that will give you rich rewards, such as runner beans and courgettes, onions from sets, salads and potatoes. Delay setting up an asparagus bed or growing dwarf French beans, cauliflowers or fennel if you feel a bit diffident.

Any sort of gardening is good for you: it’s physically active, all fresh air and freedom. But as well as the exercise, it is therapeutic in other ways.

Dealing with the soil, plunging your hands into it and enabling seed to grow into mature plants that you can then harvest and eat, has to be one of the most rewarding activities.

Growing your own is good for the soul – it’s real. What’s more, if you grow organically, the vegetables you harvest are as nutritious as they could be, packed full of vitamins and minerals, bursting with goodness and absolutely fresh.

Carol’s 10 Golden Rules

1. Look after your soil – put back what you take out.

2. Concentrate on growing what you like to eat.

3. Sow successionally to avoid gluts and ensure constant supply.

4. Pick vegetables while they are young and in their prime.

5. Rotate your crops to avoid disease and maintain vigour.

6. Interplant using catch crops (a quick-growing crop) to use space to the maximum.

7. Grow for taste rather than yield.

8. Make sure your plot is in full light for as long as possible.

9. Sow green manure – plants grown for a specific period and used to feed the soil – on vacant ground.

10. Enjoy yourself and encourage the whole family to join in.

Hedge your bets on a bushy beech

We want to grow a hedge, preferably evergreen, between us and our neighbours’ garden. We know Leylandii are a bad idea and don’t like privet. Any ideas? Kathryn Jones, Leeds

CAROL: Beech hedges usually retain their lovely, russet foliage right through the winter, although they are not evergreen. You could mix in other native trees too. These hedges are much more exciting than their evergreen counterparts and better for wildlife.

Washing old trays drives me potty

Do I have to wash out old pots and seed trays before reusing them? Tom Bates, by email.

CAROL: Yes. It is great that you’re recycling your old pots – and giving them a good scrub with warm water plus a drop of detergent or bleach will ensure you’re not passing on pests or disease.

You answer..

Last week Mrs Rogers was concerned a mushroom-like growth on her peach tree could be putting it in danger.

CAROL: If the tree cropped well that’s a good sign. Appearances can be deceptive – not all funghi are harmful. Keep an eye on the tree. If you spot another growth remove it before it matures.

Colin Power from Gateshead, Tyne and Wear, says: I’d keep dosing the growth with fungicide until it disappears for good.

Michelle Billing, by email, says: If it’s an old tree, it might just be that its age is making it susceptible to illness. You could try giving the tree a good prune and feeding it well to help build up its resistance and make it stronger.

? Can you help Emily? What’s the difference between hardy annuals and half-hardy annuals? We would like to know if we can grow either inside our nice, bright glass porch. Emily -Gabitas, Cambridge

What we’re doing this week here at Glebe Cottage

Good intentions: Everyone makes resolutions about how things are going to be different next year.

It’s a bit academic to record weather conditions and doesn’t really change things anyway, so I’m resolving to keep a record of anything that works well in the garden – especially successful combinations of plants – in order to repeat or to build on them.

Some of this will be written, but if I can get out there every day with a camera and take just a couple of snaps, who knows where it may lead? The crucial word is “if”!

Trunk call: Neil and I are going to have a tree-planting ceremony. New Year seems a good time to do it and since we don’t know any royalty, we’re planning on planting the tree ourselves. It’s an apple, James Grieve, given to us years ago by lovely friends. The only place we’ve got room is as part of our native hedge. It should be really happy there.

Offer of the week:

Rose Black Baccara is a wonderful and highly fragrant HT Rose, chosen for its unique colour. It has an upright habit of 90cm and a spread of 40cm. The buds and young flowers are the deepest maroon, becoming lighter and lighter as the beautiful flowers age.

You can buy one Rose Black Baccara for £7.99 or buy two for £15.98 and receive another free.

To order by debit/credit card, call 0844 811 6716 quoting SMG18017 or send a cheque made payable to MGN SMG18017 to Rose Black Baccara (SMG18017), PO Box 64, South West District Office, Manchester, M16 9HY or visit www.mirrorreaderoffers.co.uk/017 to order online.

Make a gardening resolution for New Year

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CORPUS CHRISTI —
With the New Year quickly approaching, people are thinking of resolutions, and I challenge each of you to make one or more gardening resolutions. Even if you fail to perfectly maintain a resolution, don’t get discouraged. Simply think about your choices and adopt ways to improve your gardening practices.

Here are some suggestions to help you think about a new course of action for 2013.

I will have a water-efficient landscape. With lake levels continuing to drop and water restrictions recently tightened, it seemed appropriate to begin with this one. Water restrictions will force homeowner, not to water lawns between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m., but every gardener should recognize this as a practical approach to water savings, even after rains eventually restore lake levels. Besides irrigation timing, other practical ways to conserve water in the landscape include purchasing soaker hoses or sprinklers with large water droplets. You also can plan to reduce the area filled with water-loving annual flowers and replace some of them with colorful perennials that need less water once they are established. Another easy approach is to mulch regularly in flower beds, usually adding extra each spring and fall to maintain about 3-4 inches of mulch.

I will regularly monitor and adjust my irrigation system. If you have an automatic watering system, it is important to inspect the positioning of sprinkler heads to make sure they are functioning properly and delivering water evenly throughout your yard.

I will look for more organic approaches to pest problems. Whether you are battling bugs, fungi, or weeds, you can look for solutions that require fewer chemicals. Often, these problems can be solved by physically smashing bugs or caterpillars, or by pulling weeds.

I will properly apply fertilizer to my lawn. Determine the size of the area of lawn and flower beds so you can figure out how much fertilizer to apply. Then you can take that information to your favorite retail garden center to help you pick the right fertilizer and quantity for your yard.

I will maintain my lawn tools and equipment. I must admit that this is one of the most neglected areas of gardening. Give your lawn mower a tuneup so it runs better and uses less fuel this next year.

I will take time to share gardening with a friend. It could be offering to help a friend with their gardening and sharing your insights and gardening tips with them. It also could be giving a plant to a friend or a child so they can watch it grow and enjoy its beauty.

Happy gardening for a safe and environmentally-friendly New Year!

Garden Tip: Kick off new year with few resolutions – Marin Independent

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Garden tip

REsolutions for fertile new year

Resolve to be a better, safer and more organized gardener in 2013. Here are just a few tips:

Wear shoes (not sandals), gloves, hat and sunscreen (yes, even in the winter) to work in the garden.

Always return tools to the same place. You won’t have to search for them the next day!

Take care of cuts, scrapes and bruises immediately to avoid infection.

Use mulch to top dress and compost to improve your soil. Your garden will be more beautiful and productive.

— Katie Martin, UC Marin Master Gardener

Fockele earns national award for peace garden

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A Gainesville company has again earned national honors for its green thumb.

The Fockele Garden Co.’s design and installation of the Wilheit-Keys Peace Garden at the Northeast Georgia Medical Center has earned a Grand Award at the 2012 Environmental Improvement Awards Program sponsored by the Professional Landcare Network.

The Grand Award is PLANET’s top designation, with the Wilheit-Keys Peace Garden one of only 39 projects to receive it nationally. Fockele Garden was the only Georgia company to earn the distinction.

Anne’s Garden, also at the medical center and designed, installed and maintained by Fockele, earned a Grand Award from PLANET in 2011. Gainesville philanthropists Philip and Mary Hart Wilheit funded the garden in honor of their late parents, Tom and Jane Eve Wilheit and Jack and Mildred Keys. Both couples were avid gardeners, and the garden includes many of the plants they grew such as roses, daylilies and hydrangeas.

“Being selected to work on this garden was both a joy and a privilege,” said Mark Fockele, company president.

“We were able to incorporate the types of plants the family has always enjoyed in their home gardens. It is a garden we believe that is beneficial to the patients, their families and the staff of the medical center.”

Fockele’s first project when he founded the company in 1990 was a landscape project for Jane Eve Wilheit.

More than 100 additional types of plants are grown in the garden, each labeled with their scientific and common names.

The garden includes sustainable practices such as a permeable walkway that serves as a rainwater collection area. Rainwater is stored in underground cisterns and used for irrigation and to refill the five fountains included in the garden.

Fockele Garden Co. is a member of PLANET. The group includes more than 3,500 member companies and affiliates, representing more than 100,000 green industry professionals. Its 43-year-old Environmental Improvement Awards Program is designed to reward independent landscape professionals who execute superior projects.

For more information about The Fockele Garden Co., call 770-532-7117 or visit www.fockelegardencompany.com. For more on PLANET, visit www.landcarenetwork.org.

Unity Gardens grows, changes leaders

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Much like the gardens it funds, the nonprofit group Unity Gardens has grown from a tiny offshoot of another group to a robust organization supporting greening projects across Anne Arundel County.

Unity Gardens has blossomed enough that the group’s director of six years, Kim Eckert, is moving on. Her successor is Barbara Dowling, who has been a board member for several years.

“It became almost synonymous with me. ‘Oh, you’re the Unity Gardens Lady,’” Eckert said.

Unity Gardens first sprouted in 2001 as a project of the Severn River Association and became its own entity in 2003.

Unity Gardens offers modest grants — up to $1,000 — for community greening projects in Anne Arundel.

They range from bog gardens to sensory gardens to playground flowers. Most have an environmental benefit or an educational aspect.

Over the years, that’s added up to more than $150,000 to more than 160 schools, community associations and Scout troops.

“I think it’s a tremendous asset to Anne Arundel,” Eckert said.

Eckert got involved with Unity Gardens through the Master Gardener program. A garden designer herself, she joined the board of directors and became executive director in 2006.

Eckert’s goals were to make the grant application process more robust and to diversify fundraising efforts.

Unity Gardens started with a significant grant from the Annapolis-based TKF Foundation. But it needed to find a broader pool of donors to stand on its own.

Today, Unity Gardens budget is about $50,000, with almost all of the money going to grants and a small portion paying for the part-time executive director.

About $20,000 comes from the county government’s reforestation fund, and the rest is raised through an annual gardening seminar, grants and donations. Companies often donate services or products, too.

“We are truly grassroots,” Eckert said.

Over the years, Eckert has marveled at the broad reach of the modest projects.

Each grant cycle, she’s mentored a handful of grant recipients, many of them applying for grants for the very first time.

Not only do gardens bloom, but leaders bloom, too, Eckert said.

It often starts with one person with a small idea, and they bring in others. After securing one grant through Unity Gardens, they become inspired to seek larger grants from other organizations for even bigger projects.

“To me, it’s about leadership,” Eckert said.

While Eckert has poured her heart into Unity Gardens — she works 30 to 40 hours per week, even though she’s supposed to be part-time — she’s ready to move on.

“I feel very confident in the direction we’re going,” she said.

Eckert, a 15-year resident of the county, plans to ramp up her involvement in Master Gardeners and to relaunch her private landscape design business.

She’s also mentoring Dowling, who is excited to take over the reins at Unity Gardens. The two women live in the same Annapolis neighborhood and have been working together during the transition.

Dowling’s goals include boosting Unity Gardens’ online presence. She wants to make the grant application process online instead of on paper.

And as a former Montessori teacher, she wants to increase the educational element of Unity Gardens-funded projects.

“It’s a whole new beginning for me,” she said.

Living Art: The Rise Of The Vertical Gardens

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A growing number of small urban spaces are creating landscaped gardens that stretch beyond floor pots, with greenery growing upwards along walls and fences.

This new trend toward ‘vertical gardens’ is renewing apartments, offices and restaurants inviting greenery to flourish in small spaces.

Vertical gardens, also referred as ‘eco walls’ or ‘green walls’, are bringing practical and aesthetic value to both domestic and commercial spaces. Along with their environmental benefits, plants and greenery can also improve air quality and promote health and wellness.

This sustainable form of architecture also supports the biophilia hypothesis, a suggestion that there is an innate connection between human beings and living systems.

According to Susan McCoy of the U.S. based trend-spotting Garden Media Group, this new generation of gardeners is composed of environmentally-conscious Gen X and Gen Y types who believe the power of plants and regard plants is “no longer a luxury, but a necessity for our lives.”

Plants can be arranged on the side of a building, on fences and walls both internally and externally. When placed strategically, vertical gardens make for great design features and are considered alternatives for wall art.

Walls and fences should be structurally strong to grow a vertical garden as they’re generally designed to be permanent structures. It is advised that professionals versed in engineering, design, building regulations, draining and horticulture be the ones to install them.

In terms of design, some organisations offer vegetated panels that can be attached or plants that can be placed in decorative containers in a grid-inspired format along the wall. Choosing vegetation for garden installation should be based on location and maintenance requirements.

For ease of maintenance, it is advisable to have a built-in irrigation system and a good drainage system nearby. Vertical gardens generally require self-watering irrigation systems, as manual hosing will result in water simply running into the ground. Hydroponic watering systems can also be installed to keep plants fed and fresh.

Installing a vertical garden inside is a great way to connect an interior space with nature. Interior greenery requires a little more attention as adequate lighting and ventilation may need to be installed. The wall and surrounding areas should also be waterproofed and actively kept dry.

Commercially, plants are being invited into offices, restaurants and high-end hotels.

“With most large offices having few windows and little natural light, insightful office managers often use plants to bring freshness and colour to the office environment, but the benefits go further than this. Research strongly suggests that plants can result in improved well-being among staff, increased productivity and improved air quality,” said UK psychologist Dr Craig Knight.

Covering a building wall can keep the wall insulated, alleviate pollution and provides a shield to the building materials from elements like the sun.

In New York, architect Laurence Tamaccio is proposing to cover the West Side Highway – the divider between Riverside Park South and the Hudson River – with a leafy vertical ivy garden and aligning waterfalls. He believes his Vine Line proposal will become a source of pride for the entire community and revamp the area aesthetically.

Near Milan, meanwhile, a shopping centre is claiming to have the biggest vertical garden in the world, with 1,263 square metres adorned with a total of 44,000 plants. It was designed by architect Francesco Bollani who said “it took us a year to grow the plants in a greenhouse and 90 days to build the facade.”

The previous record was held by a Madrid garden covering 844 square metres.

By Angela Fedele

Haze around Gandhi Hill development plan

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Development of Gandhi Hill, the first Gandhi memorial in India constructed on a hillock, has been on cards for some time.

The local officials of the Andhra Pradesh Tourism Development Corporation (APTDC) are enthusiastically working on a master plan to groom the historic place that served as the venue for the 1921 AICC meeting where Mahatma Gandhi called for prohibition.

“The hill spot has a very high potential for development of tourism. Located in the heart of the city, it has a toy train, a planetarium, a conference hall with a seating capacity for 1,000 people, a library with a rare collection of books on Gandhiji and three historic halls. Most of these structures are in a dilapidated state as they were left in a prolonged state of neglect,” says Juvvadi Raghupathi Rao, Divisional Manager of the APTDC, Vijayawada division.Mr. Rao says estimates to the tune of Rs.5 crore have been prepared and forwarded for approval of the District Collector and once it is done, the file will move to the APTDC MD’s chamber. But interestingly, Collector Budhaprakash M. Jyothi, when contacted, denied knowledge of any such proposal. “There is no such proposal. Even if a proposal to this effect is made, it will not be a welcome step because the Gandhi Hill Society, which is presently responsible for the upkeep of the place, is doing a wonderful job,” Mr. Budhaprakash told The Hindu on Friday.

Mr. Budhaprakash’s statement assumes significance in the wake of his recent visit to the hill top where he reportedly expressed displeasure over the neglect of the monument and other structures there.

Meanwhile, the APTDC talks of a series of activities it plans to take up on the hill to attract tourists. “The hill is located at a height of 500 feet and provides a panoramic view of the city. There is wide scope to develop the light and sound show at the planetarium, besides taking up landscaping, introducing adventure sports and even providing accommodation at the foot of the hill,” he says. A huge Gandhi structure of 15.8 meter height was unveiled in 1968 by Dr. Zakir Hussain on this hill to propagate the ideas of Mahatma Gandhi. It also has seven stupas placed at a height of nearly 150 meters.

Informing about a meeting of the Revenue, Tourism, Railways, Forest, Engineering and other allied department officials a couple of days ago on the issue, Mr. Rao says the Corporation is eager to launch works at the earliest.

But, the gross mismatch between the APTDC enthusiasm and blatant denial on the part of the district administration makes the picture a tad hazy.