New Construction

 

I have been thinking about new construction a lot lately. This is probably because we live in an area where many new subdivisions are being built. A thought that occurred to me is how hard is it to garden in these new subdivisions? I think there are several strikes against gardening in these settings.

Soil compaction
Just today I was walking through a new subdivision, parts of which are still under construction. One of the things I noticed was how heavily compacted is the soil. When a new subdivision is being built, site preparation begins. This is often involve stripping off a lot of the topsoil, piling it up in a big heap, and selling it off. More on this later. I have no idea how many times the average piece of property is run over by a backhoe, dump truck, or other heavy piece of equipment, but it's a lot, and this all leads to soil compaction. Why is this bad? When soils are compacted they are extra-heavy, air pockets are squeezed out of them, and it is often difficult for roots to grow in them.  Biological activity, like decomposition, greatly slows down. This is why you see many trees in subdivisions not make it after a few years, there's really nowhere for the roots to go easily.

Construction debris
What I have observed, though this may not be universally true, is that when one house is being built, the lot next door is used to park the dumpster and/or to dump construction debris. Not just bits of wire and conduit, but also piles of gravel, chunks of wood, broken plasterboard, dumped paint. Many of these things, when they got to a certain size, are impossible to extract from the soil and linger, later interfering with planting.

Soil type
I wrote earlier that topsoil is often stripped off the top of the entire subdivision and moved elsewhere. Once I looked up the soil type in my general area and was pleased to find that I was in an area of Pamunkey loam, one of the most beautiful soils in America. However, I live in ta subdivision, and the Pamunkey loam was probably stripped off a long time ago. The top few layers of the soil are the most important. This is where leaves and other organic debris are breaking down producing wonderful soil texture and many nutrients. Often under that are less nutrient-dense soil, perhaps clay, sand, or gravelly dirt.  This does not make gardening impossible, but does necessitate raised bed gardening.

HOA'S
If you buy into a subdivision with a homeowners association, and many are these days, you often find severe restrictions on your ability to garden. One of the frustrating things is that you are required to have a lawn, which requires lots of polluting upkeep. If your sunniest place is in the front yard and you want to put a vegetable garden there, chances are you will not be able to do so. Indeed, some homeowners associations are so restrictive that they even dictate the type and number of trees and shrubs you can plant in your yard, not to mention height of the grass, size of any flower beds, the need to have foundation plantings etc. Some people like this, they feel makes the subdivision have a uniform appearance and keeps up property values. But I find it aesthetically unpleasant, restrictive, boring, and frustrating.

Lawn chemicals
Because you are often required to have a lawn in many subdivisions, you are essentially committed to polluting the environment. Grass is not a plant that grows equally well everywhere: in fact, it is fairly fragile, subject to lots of pests and diseases. To keep a lawn looking healthy (whether it is really healthy or not is a different question), you have to use a mixture of fertilizers, pesticides, selective herbicides, fungicides, and nematode-preventing chemicals. All of these make it pretty tough to have a garden.  Who would want to eat produce that was contaminated with this stuff? If you ever watch a lawn company worker spray their chemicals you know that they are not very discriminating nor selective and spray in wide arcs. Indeed, if your neighbor sprays and you don't, you will often get chemical drift into your yard and plantings.

So, obviously subdivisions with homeowners associations are not for me. They may be for you, but then maybe you're not the folks reading this blog?

 An interesting essay on the history of the American lawn: 

 History of the...

Wednesday Lagniappe: Confirmed by "Science"

One of my favorite programs, NPR's "Science Friday," recently provided validation of my abhorrence of lawns!  Yay!  Listen to this illuminating, 11 minute piece at:
http://www.sciencefriday.com/segment/08/16/2013/for-a-greener-yard-lose-the-lawn.html

Happy gardening!

Big Trees and a Lush Lawn?

I try to take a walk every day. It is the best form of exercise for me and it is the perfect opportunity for me to spy on the landscaping and gardening practices of my neighbors (hey, could be worse!)  One homeowner in my neighborhood is yet again attempting to establish a lawn in a front yard that has several, very large trees in it.  This is most likely a doomed effort, a waste of time and money.  Think about it: when you walk in the woods where there are mature trees, what do you see on the ground under the trees?  Lush, green grass?  Nope.  You might see a few clumps of grass here and there, but you are more likely to see moss, clumps of ephemeral wildflowers, seedlings, and decaying leaves and branches.  (Look at the photos above: both are yards with large, mature trees).  Why is this?

The first reason most people think of is light.  Yes, some shade trees do a fairly good job of blocking light from the grass and grass needs sun.  But this is not the main reason lawns under large trees fail.  Trees have deep roots, often as wide and deep as the above-ground dimensions of the tree.  The sheer biomass of a tree has a huge capacity to soak up and store water and nutrients.  You might get rain, but little of that will be available to a lawn for long. You might water that lawn for a longer time, but the trees will soak up that water, depriving the grass of it.  Water too much, and you doom the grass to fungal rots that attack the blades and shallow roots.

What to do?  Planting shrubs can lead to the same problem, but I have had luck growing the following under or near a large pine tree: Japanese maples, Rose of Sharon, viburnum, daylilies (they like it dry), and American beautyberry.  Other than that, a pine straw mulch and some moss would be nice!

So can you have big trees and a lush lawn?  What, want a pony too?

Happy gardening!

Garden Politics

Garden Politics
I am back to reading about early colonial gardens in the US and the founding fathers (Andrea Wulf's new book Founding Gardeners: The revolutionary generation, nature, and the shaping of the American nation was just published and I was given a copy as a gift by a dear friend- the book is amazing, especially if you love gardening and history). I had understood before the political connection with garden and landscape design (or, at least, the symbolic associations we make between gardens and politics), but Wulf has reminded me more strongly of this and has filled in some important pieces.

What I find most interesting to think about is how current garden and landscaping practices are echoes of political or civic ideals through time (bear with me here). Take the American lawn ("Please!" al la Henny Youngman! How I dislike grass!). Imagine driving through a suburban area- what do you see in your minds's eye? Swathes of green lawn marching across all the yards. In the past, the lawn was only available to the very wealthy, those who had the money to hire gardeners to cut it (in a time before power tools), feed it and rip out any offending weed before it got established (no roundup [TM] then, either). The lawn itself was large, a type of conspicuous consumption: no poor or "middling sort" could afford this, as all their land was necessary for the production of food (plant or animal), medicines or for other utilitarian purposes (storage or out buildings, and areas to slaughter animals, make barrels, chop wood, do the wash, etc). The large, perfect lawn was a sign that shouted "wealth be here!"

This symbolic meaning of the lawn-as-wealth transmuted upon its arrival to America. Of course, at first, only those who could afford a lawn had one, either as a broad area of land near the house or as an accent in their pleasure gardens. Later, the lawn became a symbol of democracy, with every household having at least a small one, fronting the house, to create the visual image of a continuous green swathe across many yards, to show all were equal and this was a democracy. [We see this very same kind of transmutation, in words, with activist groups, but in an opposite direction: they take the pejorative term for their group, and adopt that very same term with bravado and courage, as a slap in the face of those who perpetuated the negative stereotype in the first place. "We riff raff can have a lawn too, you evil despots!"]

But the American political ideals of democracy and equality went even further in gardening and landscape design. Think of the Court of Versailles, and the last King and Queen of France, Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. Known for their excesses, the king and queen had elaborate gardens. The gardens of Versailles, like many gardens at royal palaces, were places of excess. Not only did European royal gardens have statuary, elaborate water features, grottoes and mechanical devices to surprise visitors, but they were full of exotic plants from far-flung countries and many of these were tortuously pruned into twisted shapes, balls, boxes, hedges, fences, espalier and other unnatural forms. This style of gardening was seen by political thinkers and gardeners in America as a sign of despotism, venality and autocratic rule and, hence, was rejected by Americans. Thus the American style of allowing plants, most especially trees and shrubs, to grow as they will, with a little helpful pruning, to form their own, natural shape, was born: this was viewed as an analogy for freedom. (Remember the Liberty Trees in many communities? Also that the sign you were a revolutionary was wearing a pin or medallion representing a tree?) Wildness and wilderness were viewed as quintessentially American

There are many other examples of the garden as a political act. People grew a substantial amount of produce through Victory gardens during World War II and having a Victory Garden was a mark of your patriotism (indeed, of all the homeland efforts during WW II, including rubber and metal drives, saving household fats to use in the war effort, only Victory Gardens made a substantial contribution). Prior to WWII, the Utopian movement in America (and abroad) often focused on gardening, agriculture and other natural aspects of self-sufficiency. These Utopian movements can be thought of as a way communities of individuals tried to assert themselves against social trends with which they disagreed. Currently, the Slow Food movement and the impetus toward community gardens and farmers' markets are also political, as well as social, acts.

I believe it is now time for a new political ethos of American garden and landscape that echo earlier notions of wildness and freedom. Today a lawn (as well as other modern, garden practices) is costly, in time, money and environmental degradation. I have written about this before, that a lawn uses a lot of water and chemicals and is a good as a desert for many native creatures to feed. The lawn can now be rightly seen as representing the opposite of freedom and democracy: that is, it is a new kind of oppression. This is the oppression of neighborhood conformity (can anyone say "neighborhood association?") coupled with the oppression of being beholden to large chemical companies that make the crap that is spread on our lawns, and larger lawn care outfits who spray this stuff for a fee. Lawns commit us to pollute and tie us down to repetitive work for little gain (OK, I guess to some the lawn does look pleasing when it is at its optimally sprayed and watered self, though when I see a perfect green lawn, my reaction is not to want take of my shoes and run about it with bare feet- my reaction is yuck, wonder how many chemicals I would pick up if I walked there?).

You can have a low-care yard of trees and shrubs, like my friend Mary- her yard is a no-care collection of lovely pine trees, whose needles blanket the ground suppressing weeds, and azaleas that bloom in spring. No mowing, no care, just occasional work to remove limbs after storms. Talk about freedom! Or you could have a yard that DOES something, grows flowers or food to feed you or wildlife. Gardening does something for you too- soothes the soul, improves your health and grows food, which is important for poor families or those wishing to be more self-sustaining. Yes, this involves more work, but so does lawn care. Care to re-think your lawn this spring?

More on Lawns

[Caption: Top: this is my idea of a "lawn"- my front yard!
Bottom: not my lawn,but a neighbor's repository for chemicals]
Here is a great New York Times column on the tensions between natural yards and suburban standards. Robert Wright does a better job describing the dilemma (and his resolution) than I ever could, just:

Click here