Tag Archives: planting

About clematis, ruins, and architecture

design

Majestic front porches are a typical staple of beautiful graystone and pseudo-graystone buildings like ours. This architectural feature from the era around 1900 crowns most front doors in our neighborhood.

Yet it is a static and somewhat lifeless element — that is, it only appears to change with the light of the day and season. In that way it’s similar to a beautifully carved and weathering gravestone.

Sometimes inanimate architecture is invaded with life. And ironically, this rejuvenation is often observed when the actual structure is in the process of decomposition. Think of ruins, abandoned houses or farms, and retired industrial complexes, where a squatter by the name of Nature moves back in when no one is looking.

The contrast can be stunning between the proud man-made forms and lines that speak of control and hubris, versus the volunteering verdure, with its persistence, perseverance, and resilience that designers dream of, if only it would not be so unrestrained.

The impulse of controlling vegetation is at least as a old as farming itself. And even though it looks like a cage for a climber, I just try to lend a helping hand, because the obituary of this architectural artifact has not yet been written. (This applies more to our front porch, upon closer scrutiny, and less so to the stairs, which are due to be replaced.)

What if we can find a balance in which we embrace vegetational vivacity and let it harbor on our structures before they turn into relics? And instead of feeling threatened by its independent temperament, we can begin to laud its liveliness and ostensibly endless network of interconnectivity.

Dare I suggest that the ever changing, climbing, ranking, and rambling can, on occasion, improve the architectural form, and with it our quality of life?

Just sayin’.

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Rain garden review

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The reports of emerging spring ephemerals in Germany and colorful Camellias in Madeira are hard to ignore. Contrast that with the recent blast of arctic air that rolled over us here in Chicago. Our rain garden is still in deep hibernation and blooming spring ephemerals still seem somewhere in the distant future.

What I have at my disposal is a trip down memory lane, to stretch that little bit of sanity that is left until we are finally blessed with the elusive spring warm up.

I wrote about the timid progress on our parkway rain garden during the 2017 season. It took until late summer before we got some substantial growth. The 2018 growing season in contrast was significantly more productive and richer in diversity, colors and textures.

I have mentioned before that we have two schools down the street from us. Once school lets out, we have kids flying down the street with an impressive amount of raw and wild energy. It reminds me a lot of my younger self and the extraordinary resilience of my parents!

If it wasn’t for the fence, the rain garden would have been bulldozed many times over by the sheer volume of little feet. But even the fence is sometimes not enough of a signal or barrier.

When I perched myself on our front porch just before the end of the school day, I could catch the pairs of feet that prefer running across sedges and asters versus the concrete sidewalk.

I was often amused by the interaction that pursued: It starts with the big eyes of someone that got caught. I strike up a conversation. I ask questions. I share a few facts about a plant or a flower, but I don’t lecture. Usually at this point I get the “deer in the headlights” stare. The little mind behind the eyes is racing, trying to process why they are not getting yelled at.

Aspects of our conversation appear to stick. At a minimum, the minds that are connected to the little feet remember our exchange for the next few weeks. One step up from the minimum would be if I left an impression and generated curiosity about the rain garden. And in the best case scenario, I got through to the little minds and created allies. Allies that start telling off their friends the moment they try to climb the knee fence.

Gardening is not just for the soul or mind, it is community.

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Blooming winter blues

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The winter blues are setting in … a perfect time to think about gardening and write about design.

After the rain garden installation, I was interested in extending the display of care and pride towards the end of our block – the corner of Kedzie and 15th Street.

The pictures are a little misleading: This corner typically doesn’t look this clean. And because it tends to accumulate trash, and is the gateway into our street, I thought this would be the perfect spot to beautify by installing planters filled with annuals.

To assure the longevity of the planters and their contents, I needed some allies. And I found them in the kids on our block and adjacent blocks, most of whom attend the school just down the street.

Someone more cynical may have perceived the kids – or for that matter anyone – as potential vandals, and wouldn’t even embark on a project like this. Or they may have tried to safeguard it so thoroughly that there was nothing stimulating or enjoyable left.

The shadow of potential vandalism follows us designers on any public project. It often influences the design language. In an attempt to shield the end product, “care and pride” is sacrificed to  what could be interpreted as “we don’t trust you.” This does not foster a sense of community ownership, which starts the downward spiral.

The strategy adjustment that can correct this is fairly simple. Catherine Baker from Landon Bone Baker Architects summed it up in one beautiful sentence in an Chicago Tribune article:

“We assume the best of the neighborhood, not the worst of the neighborhood, when we design.”

I have to say that this strategy was more successful than some of my plant choices. At the end of the day, we were able to get the planters into a shape that clearly communicated care and pride, right at the gateway to our block.

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Stalled growth

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I had high expectations. When I planted sedges (Carex sprengelii) in our front yard in 2011, they grew to their mature size within a few weeks and provided an almost instant ground cover.

I was leaning on that pleasant experience, expecting that our freshly planted rain garden cells in the parkway would perform the same way. I was in for a rude awakening.

It felt like everything we planted was sitting there forever like on the first day, not putting on any growth at all, or at slower than a snail’s pace. The plants didn’t die, but they didn’t grow, either.

I blamed the summer. It was very dry, and the little rain we got basically just kept things alive. I actually purged my rain barrel into the rain garden whenever it was full in a desperate attempt to provide emergency care.

The plantings did not take off until we got some decent rains in late summer. And by that time they were so stressed that they were cautious about how much growth they should put on.

Well, sitting on my front porch watching my rain garden flourish was a pipe dream in 2017. Maybe we’ll have more luck this season.

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Parkway planting

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Cabin fever season did peak during this years never ending winter! My preferred antidote was: Dream about spring and gardening. Or, as it is in my case – planting. Join me on a trip back to late spring last year when I was planting the three rain garden cells in our parkway.

I had put some thought into what I would plant and why. And at the end of the 2016 season I couldn’t resist putting the first perennials and geophytes into the ground.

In May of 2017, it was time to wrap up the rain garden planting. And I was prepared! I had pre-grown my sedges. My species of choice were Carex sprengelii (Long-beaked Sedge) and Carex vulpinoidea (Fox Sedge).

Not all our native sedges are suitable for a garden environment or tough enough to handle urban pressures. These two fellows (C. sprengelii and C. vulpinoidea) have turned out to be fairly resilient and have been strong performers in rain gardens. Not only that, but their beautiful fine textured foliage can only be described as eye candy.

Trapped in the plug sized trays, the sedges were screaming to be set free. Who can deny that request? If you’re a plant nerd, then you know what I am talking about.

I placed flags in the rain garden at the location of the structural perennials – as place holders – and planted the sedges at 12 inches on center across the rain garden. They provide the ground cover and act as the functional framework for the rain garden.

Also part of the ground cover matrix were two other species, Carex blanda (Common Wood Sedge) and Geranium maculatum (Wild Geranium).

I had a tray of pre-grown Carex blanda. As the common name suggests, this sedge can be found in our woodlands. This robust little fellow also does well in partial shade and partial sunny locations. I placed them at around the base of the Oak and Shagbark Hickory.

The Geranium maculatum came from a client of mine. She had them literally exploding in her rain garden and offered me the chance to harvest a bucket full of rhizomes.

  

The Wild Geraniums are superbly robust and accept an amazingly wide spectrum of growing conditions. They are also one of the native species that sprinkle a beautiful touch of color across your rain garden in spring. But that is not the end of it! They rise to notoriety again in fall when their foliage turns a beautiful red. In short, Geranium maculatum is a good and reliable performer.

My last step was to plant the structural perennials. Well, those that were still missing. Last fall I planted the Amsonia hubrichtii (Blue Star) and Baptisia australis (Blue Wild Indigo). Those still missing were:

  • Silphium terebinthinaceum (Prairie Dock),
  • Panicum virgatum ‘Shenandoah’ (Switchgrass),
  • Symphyotrichum novae-angliae ‘Purple Dome’ (New England Aster).

These I did not grow myself, but rather purchased them from local nurseries. And I purchased them in one gallon sized containers to give them a little head start in the competition with the sedges.

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