DryStoneGarden

A few months ago, I mentioned that the US Census had sent out a form for our tepee. No one, of course, resides in the tepee; we said zero occupants and mailed it back, but then I guess the census was left to wonder who had filled out the form if no one was living in it. They’ve now sent two separate workers to verify that there really is no one living in it. I suppose a tepee does sound like it could be the home of an anti-census militia activist. Neither of the census workers spoke enough English to even know what a tepee was, and until this weekend we hadn’t found time to put it up yet, so we’ve had some rather long and involved conversations to explain the situation. In a couple of weeks some friends will be coming to visit; we have to just hope the census doesn’t send out a third worker while we have people in the tepee.

The Tree Museum by Enzo Enea

While I’m posting about the value of trees, here is someone who really values his trees. Swiss landscape architect and tree collector Enzo Enea has created what he calls a tree museum for his collection. Explains Enea:

“This is a collection of trees I’ve gathered over a span of about 20 years. They come from construction sites; they would have been cut down to make way for new buildings. I needed to build a space to display them all and I wanted the trees to be seen as objects, so I set them off against sandstone.”

Inhabitat has details of the museum, World Landscape Architect has a video interview, and Arch Daily has photos of many of the trees. It reminds me of the work of Myoung Ho Lee, who makes photos of trees with a giant canvas hanging behind them. Lee’s work showed up on various blogs last year, including DryStoneGarden; the tree museum seems to be getting a similar, well-deserved run. Some of the trees are very cool, including one that is full of staples from decades of serving as the town bulletin board.

I really like the combination of the walls and stone, and if I lived just a little closer to Zurich, I’d go check it out. There are few things in the world better than a tree with a backdrop that showcases its character.

The Tree Museum by Enzo Enea

$195,140 worth of birches?

We once had to do a lot of talking to convince a client that he didn’t want to chop down a healthy live oak that was just beginning to develop the kind of dramatic architecture that can’t be purchased with anything other than time. Since then, I’ve been wanting a dollar value for what a tree can add to a property, a number that’s easily cited and perhaps easily dismissed, but undeniably monetary and specific. A number like $8,870, the number that a recent study came up with after looking at how the presence or absence of street trees affected the sale prices for homes sold in east Portland during 2006-7. (The houses with trees also sold an average of 1.7 days quicker.) It’s obviously one of those statistics which can’t be applied too literally, but the researchers seem to have made an effort to account for some of the other variables that might surround the real estate sales. And though it is somewhat mercenary and doesn’t account for the many environmental and aesthetic benefits of trees and there probably isn’t a direct causal relationship, it might help people appreciate their trees more. What homeowner could hear that stat and not go right out to get a street tree? Personally, I’m sure I’ll cite the number at some point in the future, possibly to our landlord who knows that Anita and I are responsible for adding six street trees to our block. Shouldn’t that get us $53,220 credit towards our rent?

In a somewhat related note, I’ve always liked this planting of birches in my neighborhood and this post seems like the most reasonable time to mention it. The planting has an impressive total of 22 birches, which is 19 more than anyone else ever has. I’m pretty sure the birches count as ‘good overall tree cover,’ rather than as individual $8,870 trees, but there’s no question they make the house more valuable and desirable. The trees do the sun-in-winter, shade-in-summer thing for the house, and the planting always looks remarkably good, even when the understory needs maintenance. Designers talk about being bold or committed; 22 birches shows a serious level of commitment. Props to whoever planted them.

Bottle Tree in November

I’m intrigued by the Southern and African tradition of making bottle trees to trap evil spirits, but living in California I don’t know much about it and I hadn’t ever seen one in person, so I was pleased to discover one in my neighborhood. It’s in front of a house with various symbols painted on the front door and the utility box, and while I was taking the pbotos a guy whizzed past me on a bicycle and said, “Careful! They’re witches!”

May

June

June

Felder Rushing has a great collection of photos and a short history of the practice. And there’s a massive flickr collection. Traditionally, it seems to have been done with a dead tree or with sticks stuck in the ground; Crape Myrtles are the iconic species. Nowadays many are constructed of metal or some other material, rather than an actual tree. Very few seem to be from a tree that is still alive.

The Utility Box

I don’t want to mess with any witch juju, but it seems okay to show the utility box which has the same stars and moons as the front door. It never would have occurred to me to adorn a utility box. It’s surprisingly pleasing.

A while back, James at LostintheLandscape did a post titled Our Gardens After We’re Gone, musing about what might happen to his garden if or when he is no longer stewarding it. TownMouse and Bradzio at RootedinCalifornia and probably some other folks followed up with posts about what might happen to their own gardens. It makes sense that it was such a popular topic; gardening is largely about planning and envisioning the future. Anita and I have to do that pretty much all the time, and quite a few of the gardens we install are essentially a ‘garden with us gone’. After we design and plant, we usually return to do maintenance occasionally, but often times we just walk away. There are a few gardens out there that we installed and never saw again. It’s interesting to imagine what they look like.

One garden that we do see on a weekly basis is an example of some of the different things that can happen. We installed it four years ago and maintained it for about two, but then the client moved and took some of the plants with him. It was a shock the first time I saw the garden without them, but now I’m used to it and I find it interesting to see how the rest of the planting has endured.

The Intact Section (minus a couple of shrubs in the back right)

This section is still largely intact, with just a couple of shrubs missing. It looks like the new tenants might be weeding it and watering (the irrigation system was a casualty when the plants were transplanted, but someone might be hand-watering), though it’s hard to guess about the watering this early in the dry season. The weeds were pretty thoroughly eradicated by the time we stopped maintaining it, so the plants might be holding off interlopers.

Coyote Brush Pioneer

This section, with every plant moved to the new location, is a landscape designer’s memento mori. Coyote brush, one of the main pioneer plants in this area has already moved in. Without humans pulling the volunteers, I think coyote brush would pop up in almost every garden we’ve ever installed.

Ceanothus with weeds

This Ceanothus and the Salvia clevelandii in the first photo are fighting the good fight against weeds. This section was never on irrigation and clearly doesn’t get any weeding. Salvia and ceanothus versus weeds, who will win? There’s probably some coyote brush in there somewhere getting ready to join the battle.

The Smokebush at its New Home

This smokebush is one of the plants that was transplanted to the new location. It’s easy to understand why the owner would want to take it with him.

This June Bloom Day finds the garden needing some clean up and maintenance, but with plenty of things blooming. I like how the Brodiaeas look and the big spicebush in the back is really happy and the purple leaved canna in our gray water container is about to start blooming, but all of the spring bloomers still need to be deadheaded and there are bamboo leaves in all the plants, and the skunks have also started digging in the garden. I can hear them out there digging as I do this post. There are four young ones in the local family this year, an improvement over last year when there were seven.

Oriental Lily

This Oriental lily is probably the most accurate depiction of the state of the garden.

Lemon Lily, Lilium parryi

I have several Lilium parryi, the native Lemon Lily, grown from seed, now in gallon pots. This is their third year and my second flower. The flower doesn’t last long, but it’s really pretty.

Fried Egg Flower, Matillija Poppy

This year the Matillija poppies really remind me of fried eggs.

Monardella macrantha Marian Sampson

The Monardella macrantha is draping down into the foliage of some Clarkia. It might have my favorite red of all the California natives.

Scrophularia

The Scrophularia is a nice red if you put your face or camera about three inches away. Otherwise, it can be hard to tell that it’s blooming. I like the Galvezia from a little more of a distance.

Galvezia speciosa, Island Snapdragon

Calycanthus occidentalis, Western Spicebush

A couple more shots of the Spicebush which has completely taken over the area in front of the outdoor shower. The fragrance of the flowers is just barely noticeable, unlike the wisteria which was very strong. Interestingly, the fallen petals of the wisteria burned holes through the leaves everywhere that they landed on the spicebush. None of the other plants have that problem.

Nasturtium in the Spicebush

Spicebush and Canna

Thanks to Carol at MayDreamsGardens for creating and hosting bloom day. Click over for links to all sorts of other blogs showing off their flowers.

I’ve been keeping a list of everything in bloom in our garden each month, so I’ll be adding that to this post when I get a chance. It usually takes me a couple of days to add it.