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Groundhog Landscaping Offers Organic Garden Compost

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Groundhog Landscaping in Londonderry, New Hampshire has added organic garden compost and compost enriched topsoil to their landscape materials division.

Londonderry, NH — (SBWIRE) — 05/09/2014 — Since the company began in 1994, delivery of landscape materials such as bark mulch, screened loam, and gravels have always represented a significant amount of their annual sales.

In 2013, the owner, Todd Bahan, noticed an emerging trend. “People started asking if we carry garden compost,” explains Bahan. “It seems that backyard gardening has become a popular trend. These home gardeners were looking for soil rich in organic nutrients. They wanted an alternative to regular screened loam for their vegetable gardens.” After researching compost suppliers in the Northeast, Groundhog Landscaping decided to begin offering organic garden compost that is state approved for use in organic farms.

The United States Department of Agriculture regulates and certifies organic farms under strict guidelines regarding pesticide usage, biodiversity, and sustainable farming practices. The soil itself is not certified organic, but in order to be approved for use on organic farms, organic compost must have no bio-solids, sewage sludge or amendments added such as inorganic fertilizers and pesticides. The garden compost provided by Groundhog Landscaping has been tested by the New Hampshire Department of Agriculture and meets those requirements.

While organic agriculture is strictly regulated, there is currently no regulation on using the word “organic” in landscaping. Nevertheless, New Hampshire residents are becoming more conscious of using sustainable landscaping practices. “People are concerned about pesticides on their lawn,” notes Sean Kelley, the manager of Groundhog Turf Care. “They want to know about organic lawn care programs, or at least what they can do to promote a healthy lawn without a lot of chemical fertilizers. Top dressing with organic compost can do just that.”

In addition to offering garden compost, Groundhog Landscaping also supplies “Super Loam,” a pH balanced blend of compost and topsoil formulated specifically for lawns. Unlike most sifted top soils, Super Loam has 50% composted organic matter mixed in which helps grass seed establish quicker and retain moisture during a hot dry summer. Super Loam is also tested by state certified labs and approved for organic agriculture.

For more information on this press release visit: http://www.sbwire.com/press-releases/groundhog-landscaping-offers-organic-garden-compost-504373.htm

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Garden tour shows desert landscaping can be easy, fun

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It’s Time to …

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Plant Easter gifts. If you’re like my sister, who received Easter plants from her kids and grandkids, you may be wondering what to do now that blooms have faded. Whether flowering shrubs, bulbs, or lilies, figure out their basic growing requirements – sun or shade, moist or dry soil. What, no gardening books? You have a great many sources – the Internet, as well as QA services through the Greater Philadelphia Gardens member organizations: http://www.greaterphiladelphiagardens.org/gardens.asp – to help you pick the best spot to plant. Carefully loosen roots after removing the plant from its pot. You’ll know you’ve dug a deep enough hole when the soil surface of the plant is even with the surrounding ground.

Trim lavender and roses carefully and slowly over the next few weeks. Timing is everything in a garden. Take lavender. Although your plant may have looked dead a month ago, it’s likely showing signs of waking up, with leaf color turning from gray to blue-green. Check any bare, woody stems for new clusters of leaves. Roses, too, tend to look dead just before buds start to swell. Inspect the whole plant before starting to trim back the stems (called canes) to live buds. Always use a sharpened pair of pruners.

Try edible landscaping. Rather than growing vegetables and flowers in separate parts of the garden, I encourage you to create patches within your flower garden where you can plant edible crops. As long as you remember what you planted and where, you can rotate crops annually, moving them to a different patch to avoid perpetuating plant diseases. For more information about edible landscaping, look up Rosalind Creasy online. She’s an authority on the subject who inspired me to try this way of gardening many years ago.

Patricia Schrieber is director of education for the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society (PHS) (www.phsonline.org), and co-owner of Valentine Gardens (www.valentine-gardens.com).

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Time to submit landscaping for the 2014 Lee’s Summit Landscape Contest

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Open to all Lee’s Summit and Lake Lottawana residents no matter the level of expertise or garden size.

This annual landscape contest, sponsored by the Lee’s Summit Beautification Commission, is all about how a resident has helped beautify their property and Lee’s Summit. Contestans should show potted plants and porches, winding paths and secret hideaways, or prized rose gardens or chrysanthemums. Most of all, gardening and planting. Categories include: Front Back; Front Only; Back Only; Patio/Deck/Container Garden; Water Garden; Subdivision Entrance and new this year… “Before and After.” This category asks for participants to submit “before” photos with entry form and judging will be based on marked transformation of landscape area based on before photo to date of judging.

Deadline for entries is June 9. Interested landscapers can print a registration form at lsparks.net or request a form be mailed or emailed at lspr@cityofls.net or stop by any Lee’s Summit Parks Recreation location.

Judging will take place June 21-22. Results will be announced after Aug.1 with the presentation of awards taking place at a Lee’s Summit City Council meeting followed by a participant reception. First place winners will receive an attractive yard sign recognizing the winning landscape. Recognition at a City Council meeting, as well as gift certificates from the following sponsors: Heartland Nursery; Westlake on 291; Westlake on Ward Road; Lowe’s; Nick’s Greenleaf Nursery; Springtime Garden Center; The Grass Pad; Randy’s Lakeview Nursery; Van Liews Home Garden; Suburban Lawn and Garden; Rose Hill Gardens.

Landscape Contest Rules: Open to all residents within the Lee’s Summit city limits. Applicants may submit an entry for one category only. Entries must be postmarked by June 9. Judges may place entries in a more suitable category at their discretion.

All gardens and personal property shall be at the risk of the exhibitor. The Beautification Commission shall not be liable for loss or damage from any cause whatsoever. All names and addresses of the winning participants shall become part of the public record and may be included in print media and on the City’s website. Any photos taken of the entries shall remain the property of the City of Lee’s Summit and may be used for promotional purposes.

For further information, please contact the City of Lee’s Summit Beautification Commission liaison at Lee’s Summit Parks and Recreation 816-969-1500 or visit www.lsparks.net and like Lee’s Summit Beautification on Facebook.

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Tom Karwin, On Gardening: Renovations — Framing good views, blocking bad …

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This city sanctuary is featured in Sunsets new quot;Western Garden Book of Landscaping.quot; Notice how that rear wall hides a neighbors

In recent columns on garden renovation, we have focused on planning, removing unwanted plants and hardscape, and analyzing the garden’s soil. This column takes a closer look at objectives for the landscape.

Earlier, we wrote, “Envision how you will use the landscape: outdoors living, with parties, barbecues, etc.; recreation for children or adults; growing fruits and vegetables; or simply enjoying horticultural displays. Write it down.”

The intended uses are basic in landscape planning, but more specific objectives might be relevant to a given property. Here are two examples.

Block an undesired view

Many homes are close to other homes, public buildings or commercial establishments, and garden renovators might wish to block the view of adjacent structures or activities. Blocking a view has creating privacy as its corollary.

This objective can be accomplished by installing one or more shrubs or trees to interrupt a sight line between a favored spot on the landscape and the undesired view, or between a spot where privacy is wanted and a place where an off-site viewer might be.

This strategic act will succeed most quickly if the renovator installs large plants, but that can be very expensive. The garden renovator should be patient enough to install plants of affordable size, and savvy enough to select shrubs or trees that are fast-growing but otherwise garden-worthy. Visit ongardening.com for ideas.

Resist any inclination to install a shrubbery wall to block the view to and from the public sidewalk and street. This landscaping device announces, “A recluse lives here.” Adjustable window coverings are better alternatives.

Frame a desired view

The viewshed of some homes might include a field or forest or mountain or ocean or some other scene that pleases the eye. It might be the natural environment or a built structure. In such happy situations, the first landscaping objective should be to retain or reveal the view. This might require removing poorly placed trees or shrubs, and not installing plants that would grow to obscure the view.

The second objective should be to develop landscaping that draws attention to the viewshed and to its best features. This might involve framing the view from a selected observation area, which might be inside the residence or on a deck or patio. Just as a picture frame separates a picture from it surroundings, carefully positioned trees can highlight a desired viewshed.

In time, an undesired view could become unobjectionable, and new construction could block a desired view. Whatever happens, your viewshed rights stop at the property line, so manage your landscaping accordingly.

Next: Working with uneven topography.

Tom Karwin is a UC Master Gardener and vice president of the Friends of the UC Santa Cruz Arboretum. He gardens in Santa Cruz. Send feedback to gardening@karwin.com. Visit ongardening.com for info on garden coaching and more on landscape renovation.

Framing a view

When framing a garden view, here are some things to consider:

• The goal of framing a view is to draw attention to an object or scene.

• Framing the view can achieved by opening a sight line to the desired subject and screening out surrounding distractions.

• Views inside or outside the garden may be framed.

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Bakersfield horticulturist talks summer gardening at monthly BMOA lecture – KERO

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BAKERSFIELD – Horticulturist Amber Beeson spoke in the Bakersfield Museum of Art Sculpture Garden Wednesday morning. 

Beeson shared gardening and landscaping tips and discussed her life growing up in Bakersfield to pursue her passion in horticulture.

Beeson spoke about her work at BMOA, and give tips for spring and summer gardening.

This is part of the BMOA lecture series, which is held every first Wednesday at the museum.

Beeson is founder of the award-winning Giving Tree Project Benefit Corp. and has designed many local gardens including; “Seeds of Inspiration,” “Greenfield Walking Group” Community Gardens, “Train the Trainer” School Garden at William Penn Elementary, among others.

She received the “Pocket of Excellence” award by the Superintendent of Schools in 2013, and named one of the “People to Watch in 2014” by the Bakersfield Californian. 

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Caption Chinese Garden at the Huntington

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Spring seems only around the corner at Liu Fang Yuan, or the Garden of Flowing Fragrance, at the Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens in San Marino. Delicate pink cherry blossoms have begun to appear on trees, and dappled sunlight warms the stone walkways.

There are other changes in the air at the Chinese Garden, as it is more informally known. Workers are putting finishing touches on new pavilions, walkways and landscaping as the newest garden in the Huntington’s collection of more than a dozen readies its first expansion since its 2008 opening.

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On March 8 (March 7 for members), the Chinese Garden premieres three major new architectural elements as part of its second-phase expansion: two pavilions and a rock grotto with a waterfall that visitors can walk under. Still to come for the planned 12-acre site are a small gallery for Chinese art, a hillside pavilion and a penjing (a style of horticulture similar to Japanese bonsai) court. About half the $22 million needed to complete the project has been raised so far.

PHOTOS: Huntington expands its Chinese Garden

The Chinese Garden’s curator, June Li, leads a visitor around the 1.5-acre lake that forms the centerpiece of the Suzhou-style garden, which is modeled after the scholars gardens that thrived during the 16th and 17th century Ming dynasty. Li has helped oversee the creation of the garden since her arrival in 2004, and she also organizes exhibitions of Chinese art.

The path around the lake from the garden’s main entrance is lined with craggy limestone rocks from Lake Tai in China. A small bridge separates the older buildings from the new.

First up after the bridge is a pavilion with open sides, intricate woodwork and a tiled roof with ends that sweep jauntily upward. Li says that this pavilion is designed for visitors to linger in, rest and enjoy the views across the lake; built-in benches along the sides have curved backs.

The space is also designed for performances — music, plays and operas — and once the courtyard is completed, there will be seating for about 350. It’s called the Clear and Transcendent Pavilion, or Qing Yue Tai, to evoke the pureness of music floating over the water. The Huntington has already engaged its first musician in residence, noted pipa player Wu Man, who is composing a piece to premiere in June.

Inside the pavilion is a wide screen made of blond gingko wood. The north-facing upper panels show scenes from the classic Chinese play by Tang Xianzu, “The Peony Pavilion,” a 16th century love story that takes place in a garden. On the other side, facing the lake, the panels show four classic Chinese musical instruments, including the lute-like pipa.

“The garden fosters two major modes of enjoyment: solitude and society,” Wang-go Weng, Chinese scholar and advisor to the garden, has written. “It soothes worldly cares and anxieties and stimulates poetic and artistic sensibilities.”

Most of the visible man-made elements in the garden — columns, rafters, woodwork, tiles and granite bridges — were shipped from China, then assembled by 23 Suzhou workmen who were on site for four months.

“We really needed the Chinese craftsmen because they’re trained in the Chinese traditions of woodwork, roof tiles, laying out the paving,” Li says. “It’s as if we’re preserving the skills here in these buildings.”

Next on the winding path around the lake is the rock grotto — the Lingering Clouds Peak (Liu Yun Xiu). It’s a stack of Taihu rocks through which you can walk and enjoy a thunderous waterfall cascading over you.

“Traditionally they would just pile the rocks together, and they would be held by gravity and mortar,” Li says. However, due to California construction codes, the rocks have been reinforced in place. “In this case, all of these rocks in the ceiling and sides are secured to a cement frame.”

A little farther along is the Waveless Boat Pavilion (Bu Bo Xiao Ting), a pavilion shaped like a leisure boat that provides another spot for gatherings and for gazing at scenery. Everything in the Chinese Garden is designed for poetic and philosophical significance.

In Taoist and Confucian thought, mountains and rocks denote stability and endurance, while water is ever-changing but powerful. All the names of garden features suggest the beautiful or the auspicious. “Waveless” is a literary allusion to a calm and tranquil state of being — in other words, smooth sailing.

‘Cracked ice’ motif in the Huntington’s Chinese Garden

One of the many traditional elements woven into the new section of the Huntington’s Chinese Garden is a “cracked ice” pattern. In this case the diagonal lines are interspersed with a plum blossom design. The motif is seen in handmade gingko wood latticework around the moon gate entrances to the Clear and Transcendent Pavilion and in stone-and-ceramic pathways that link the new pavilions and the rock grotto. It also appears on the nearby Pavilion of the Three Friends, one of the original buildings.

The two symbols “often go together in the decorative arts,” says June Li, curator of the Chinese Garden. “Plum blossoms represent early spring when it’s still really cold, and thawing begins and the ice begins to crack.”

Li says the cracked ice pattern, which has been recorded since the 17th century but is probably older, looks modern to her eye. “I think of the Amish quilts. If you look at crazy quilts, it’s very random but it’s also very planned. And in a way that’s how the cracked ice pattern can develop. It makes for a very nice asymmetrical design.”

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Copyright © 2014, Los Angeles Times

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Sinnissippi renovation receives landscape award

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By Rockford Register Star


Posted May. 5, 2014 @ 1:24 pm
Updated May 5, 2014 at 1:25 PM

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Croton Landscaper Lectures On Good Gardens

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CROTON-ON-Hudson, N.Y. — Croton-On-Hudson resident and landscaper Jan Johnsen knows what makes a garden inviting and tranquil.

As part of the Croton Village Garden Club’s Green Living series, Johnsen gave a talk based on her new book “Heaven is a Garden – Designing Serene Outdoor Spaces for Inspiration and Reflect”.

Johnsen’s talk featured a slideshow of various gardens, many of which are in Northern Westchester. 

“This is wonderful,” Johnsen said at the talk. “We need gardens. We need serenity and to be unplugged. We need that outdoor space.”

The characteristics of a serene garden include simplicity and sanctuary, she said. 

“There are spots that are sheltered and protected,” Johnsen said. “It feels cozy. It gives you delight.”

Johnsen quoted Luis Barragan who said, “A garden must combine the poetic and mysterious with the feeling of serenity and joy.”

Gardens should have a power spot and something at the high point of the garden.

“It’s a destination,” Johnsen said. “It works all the time. Make the journey to the high point part of the fun.”

Johnsen also recommended putting columns in the backyard because they are nice to look at.

“They are a nice counter punch to the softness,” Johnsen said.

When it comes to gardens, direction is key. The northern part should be contemplative, while the southern part should be open and expansive with sunflowers and petunias.

The eastern part should be the most auspicious while the western part should be shaded and the place to end the day.

“People like to get together and talk here,”  Johnsen said. 

Color is also an important part of a garden. Johnsen said yellow cheers us up and stimulates while orange is the color of conversation, flamboyance and vitality.

“Red is excitement, power and luck,” Johnsen said. “It really sparks up a garden. Blue induces calm. Green is the most relaxing color.”

Johnsen said gardens help people return to a kinship of nature.

“We can quiet our thoughts and we can reflect, recharge, reconnect, realign and remember,” Johnsen said.

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The Eco-Unfriendly Appeal of a Lush Green Lawn

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What does your shrubbery say about you?

It may seem like a silly question, but newly published research suggests people infer things about homeowners by looking at their lawns and gardens. And for eco-minded policymakers who are encouraging residents of the American Southwest to opt for drought-resistant landscaping, that’s a problem.

The results of three experiments “suggest that the elements used in residential landscaping have broad symbolic and self-presentational significance,” a research team led by University of Iowa psychologist Rebecca Neel writes in the Journal of Environmental Psychology.

Specifically, lush green lawns dotted with trees and shrubs confer an aura of high social status on a household, among other positive implications. The researchers believe this association may make people hesitant to opt for natural landscapes requiring low water usage.

“When the decision maker chose high-water-use landscaping, they were seen as higher in status, sexual attractiveness, family orientation” and even religiosity.

The first experiment featured 171 students from a large university in the Southwestern U.S. Participants read a short vignette about a man, woman, or couple who moved into a home with either “typical desert landscaping with cacti and other plants,” or one with “typical grass landscaping with trees and shrubs.”

They were told that the homes were “quite similar,” so the only real decision the new homeowner had to make was the type of landscaping. They then rated the person or couple on a variety of characteristics.

“When the decision maker chose high-water-use landscaping,” the researchers write, “they were seen as higher in status, sexual attractiveness, family orientation” and even religiosity. All in all, such people were seen as higher in status as their counterparts with the low-water landscaping.

A second study, featuring 376 university students, added another variable to the mix. Participants read the same scenario and made the same evaluations, but some were told the homes were in a middle-class neighborhood, while others read that they were in a working-class or upper-class area.

Across the board, those choosing traditional landscapes were similarly judged as higher in status.

A final study was conducted online, via Amazon’s Mechanical Turk. Fifty-three people from California, Utah, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas completed a survey in which they reported which type of landscaping they would choose “if they were trying to convey a specific trait.” Traits included conscientiousness, environmentalism, family orientation, political ideology, masculinity, femininity, religiousness, and youthfulness.

Confirming the results of the first two experiments, “high-water landscapes were selected to communicate higher social status, a more positive general impression, family orientation, political conservatism, femininity, religiousness, youthfulness, agreeableness, extraversion and prosociality,” the researchers write. The low-water option did convey one positive quality (the expected one): environmentalism.

It all suggests that “self-presentational considerations may thus constitute a barrier to the adoption of low-water-use landscapes,” the researchers conclude.

With much of the Western U.S. suffering from a long-term drought, encouraging water conservation is a vital public policy goal; this research provides valuable evidence of one major obstacle toward achieving it. For low-water landscaping to really catch on, it may be necessary to change public perceptions, so that the choice signals affluence and importance.

Is it time for high-end nurseries to start selling designer cacti?

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