gentle gardener: green

Phosphorus For Your Garden Plants – Its Crucial Importance And How To Apply It Correctly | TopPageInformationListing.info

Plants require 12 mineral nutrients that are essential for their growth and development. A shortage of any one element will result at best in stunted and poor growth. The plant however needs the various minerals in differing amounts. Phosphorus, together with Nitrogen and Potassium, being consumed in relatively large amounts, is considered one of the macro elements.

via www.toppageinformationlisting.info

#phosphorus occurs in nature and is crucial for growth. As Walter Reeves,#MG Cooperative Extension master gardener teacher at the Atlanta Botanical Garden, taught us, here's how to read a fertilizer bag:

N P K "UP, Down, AllAround":

N=Nitrogen which greens plants UP, gives them top leaf/stem growth for more photosynthesis so they can feed themselves...

P=phosphorus, which plants need to go DOWN with root development to survive drought, provide a strong foundation for top growth and for bloom development...

and K=potassium, which is crucial to ALLAROUND vascular growth.

I'm no soil scientist. "UP-DOWN-ALLAROUND" is single most important thing I learned in MG training.

The finer points of how addding highly concentrated phosphorus fertilizer to alkaline soil creates a concrete-like farming disaster in developing countries and elsewhere, I learned from Bill Mollison in training to be a certified #permaculture designer.

Most important sentence of the article is last, of course (Peek at the happy ending first!)

 

"It may be well worth your while conducting a soil test before amending your soil. If you are in doubt, it would be best to rely on organic matter only, excluding chemical fertilizer altogether."

And now #VA and other #Chesapeake Bay watershed states: New York, New Jersey Elevate Lawn Phosphorus Debate | Safelawns Daily Post and Q&A Blog

Compile all the managed lawn surface in New York and New Jersey and, conservatively speaking, you’d probably be talking about 15 percent of the total lawn care industry in the United States. That puts billions of dollars and high emotion into play when the two states’ legislatures start passing lawn laws.via www.safelawns.orgmore on bad science > bad policy > bad legislation > unintended consequence: putting organics and small businesses out of business

via gentlegardener.typepad.com

Will VA follow other states in banning phosphorus-containing fertilizers, even #organic fertilizers?

Is Grass always the 'greenest' choice? Beautiful alternatives to #turfgrass to benefit gardens, streams and the Bay

                
March 16, 2011
Time 7PM
Location: Central Rappahannock Regional Library

1201 Caroline St. Fredericksburg, VA
Speaker; Virginia Rockwell, LEED Green Associate, VSLD, VCH, APLD Associate

Topic: Is Grass always the “greenest” choice? Beautiful alternatives to turf grass that will help clean up out waterways, too.

via www.mgacra.com

Open to the public, landscape design alternatives to turfgrass on the eve of St. Paddy's Day.

Go Green!

Finding the Money in Water: The Smart Landscaping Boom | Triple Pundit: People, Planet, Profit

By David Jay

via www.triplepundit.com

As usual, California is at the forefront of this #water-saving landscape design trend. Here in the midAtlantic, a second reason to use less water in landscapes: all that water carries runoff of excess nitrogen, phosphorus and sediment into our streams and eventually Chesapeake Bay.

Landscape auditors? Creating those jobs won't satisfy the 'landscape free or die' crowd, but it's a thought. Landscape coaches, educators, first....then, the auditors, maybe.

Regardless, landscapes typically use an awful lot of water on landscapes, and the embedded energy that goes with it. We CAN do better...by catching and using the rain off the roof, by infiltrating SLOWLY into our own land the rain we get, and by planting and fertilizing more sensibly and sustainably.

Landscape for Life -- Based on the principles of the Sustainable Sites Initiative

via www.landscapeforlife.org

Woohoo! a translation of the Sustainable Sites Initiative,  from landscape architectureSpeak to down-to-Earth gardener talk ....I am a fan!

Landscape design came a little late to the LEED party...After all, if you could build a 'green' building, but trash the site while doing it, what was so green about that?

But after a long subterranean growth period, green shoots are appearing!  The ASLA, US Botanic Garden and Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center have worked together on this for YEARS...and while 99% of the pilot projects for the Sustainable Sites Initiative aka SITES(TM)are public, so that people can experience these demonstration projects, it's great to see a quick translation.

In the Chesapeake Bay watershed, this is the RxH20 for our soils getting healthy, our waters getting cleaner, and our people being more conscious and healthy.

Congratulations to the writers/translators at Blue Crocus Consulting for doing the necessary work of bringing this good work down to Earth.

Gentle Gardener Green Design creates gardens and landscapes in accordance with the Sustainable Sites Initiative. Virginia is now a LEED Green Associate (one of only 92 LEED credentialed landscape architecture/design people in Virginia), credentialed by the U.S. Green Building Council as a person schooled in sustainability.

Allee at Rothesay: Gillette Garden Goes Green

Sustainable garden revamp of this 75 year old Charles Gillette design showcases green practices:  sustainable container gardens featuring native and drought-tolerant plants, bench fragment re-upholstered with LiveRoof panels, living wall demonstration panels on locally made wrought iron arch, careful organic care to revive boxwoods and crape myrtles.  Garden and house open through 11 October 2010 to benefit Richmond Symphony Orchestra League.  All container gardens and garden ornament for sale through Boutique on site.

via web.me.com

enjoy pictures before, after, during revamp of 75 year old Gillette garden!

Green Matters @ Charlottesville Community Design Center Tuesday 12 October

SUSTAINABILITY NEWS


GREEN MATTERS: PANEL DISCUSSION IN CHARLOTTESVILLE ON
SUSTAINABLE LIVING OUTDOORS
AT CHARLOTTESVILLE COMMUNITY DESIGN CENTER
Tuesday 12 October 5-7PM

Want to know why green matters? Join us October 12th for "Sustainable Living Outdoors" at the CCDC, from 5pm - 7pm for the return of the Green Matters lecture series. A special thanks to our sponsors: Blue Ridge Home Builders Association, Airflow Systems, Inc. Dominion Power, and Latitude 38. Sustainable Living Outdoors Expand your living space into the outdoors, create healthy habitats for butterflies and birds, grow your own food, and protect the environment. Join us for a discussion of how to design your yard and landscaping to require less water, lawn maintenance, while incorporating edible landscaping and native plantings.

Moderator: Charles Hendricks, AIA, CSI, CDT, LEED AP The Gaines Group, Architecture and Design Experts: Karl Shank, The Natural Garden Virginia Rockwell, VSLD, VCH, LEED Green Associate, Gentle Gardener This event is free and open to the public. For more information: www.greenmatters.info facebook link to more information

via www.gentlegardener.com

join us to talk about establishing sustainable gardens/landscapes this autumn, the BEST time of the year to plan and establish your garden.

Rothesay on the James, 2010 Richmond Symphony Orchestra League Designer House

Rothesay, as the 10,000-square-foot house is called, is this year's Richmond Symphony Orchestra League Designer House. The property has been redecorated by 46 designers and artisans including Washington's Mary Douglas Drysdale, who did the living room.

via www.washingtonpost.com

Even more impressive are the over 7 acres of gardens surrounding Rothesay, including several rooms designed by Charles Gillette and renovated by landscape designers certified by the #VSLD, the Virginia Society of Landscape Designers, the oldest professional landscape design certifying body in the Commonwealth. Check out the Allee renovated using sustainable garden methods by #Gentle Gardener Green Design.

Allee: 75-Year-Old Gillette Design Goes ‘Green’ : now open through 11 October 2010

Richmond Symphony Designer House & Garden Tour

Design:  Virginia R. Rockwell, VSLD, VCH, LEED Green Associate

Green Projects Management:  Scotty Guinn Dilworth

 

The Allee is:

    A Charles Gillette-designed garden, serene yet playful, with a bit of mystery, and a surprise:  You may just learn something new…just as the children of The Secret Garden (1911) did! 

The Allee showcases sustainability with aesthetics in keeping with the character of the home.  As specialists in sustainable landscapes, container gardens, and event/floral design, we showcase the best of 'green' methods in one outdoor 'room’. 

We discovered this ‘Secret Garden’ under layers of deciduous leaves and vines covering Gillette’s 1930’s design for herringbone brick walk, steps and walls, the leaves slowly composting beneath the boxwoods and thus feeding them.

Your journey ends with a private view of the James framed by Magnolia grandiflora ‘Kay Parris’ and a wrought iron Arch featuring living wall panels and one of Rothesay's own bench fragments 'reupholstered' with living roof panels of drought-tolerant and heat-reducing plants.  The existing buxus sempervirens (American Boxwood) in the Allee we believe were used as ‘nursery’ stock to keep the boxwood plantings around the grounds at Rothesay supplied sustainably.  The existing lagerstroemia indica  (crape myrtles) lift and direct the eye to the views.

Q:  What Makes this garden ‘green’?

A:  Existing, Native, Repurposed, Local, Reusable, Organic,

Drought-tolerant, Heat-reducing 

• Locally made wrought iron arch by blacksmith Paul McGill, McGill Metalsmithing, Keswick, VA

• Re-purposed fisheye mirror suspended in peak of Arch

• Living wall panels and LiveRoof 'upholstery' on bench fragments by SGDesigns, Richmond, VA

• Pairs of brick red pots atop the wall plinths demonstrate 'sustainable container gardens' :  how to use native and drought-tolerant shrubs, perennials, grasses in containers for a period, then transplant out into the garden, accented by only small numbers of drought-tolerant annuals. 

• Existing charming Rothesay tennis footwear signs  as garden ornament (found under a bench).

•Existing Rothesay benches and wrought iron chairs, sycamore limbs as pedestals

• Only ONE brick had to be replaced at the top step after 75 years!

• Existing crape myrtles were fed and watered and pruned of dead wood and vines, NOT TOPPED

• Existing American boxwood were cared for organically this year:  fed with slow release organics and calcitic lime per soil test, watered, and sprayed with horticultural oil spray and insecticidal soap.  Dead, diseased and stems with leafminer were removed.  Spring pruning took no more than 1/3 of the foliage, opening up light and air circulation.

•NO IRRIGATION was installed.

For More Information, Contact:

Virginia R. Rockwell, VSLD, VCH, LEED GREEN ASSOCIATE

[email protected]

For Tickets, go to www.rsol.org

75 year old Gillette garden goes 'green': update by Gentle Gardener Green Design

Rothesay..., the 2010 Richmond Symphony Orchestra League Designer House, is situated on a spectacular site overlooking the James River. This year, for the first time, the Designer House will not only feature the work of interior designers but also the work of 10 landscape designers, a few of whom are featured in the videos below.

via www.richmondmagazine.com

check out the video of Scotty Guinn Dilworth, Project Manager for Gentle Gardener Green Design, at http://vimeo.com/12752764...on our green approach to this Charles Gillette garden design..and visit the house and garden, open NOW through midOctober.  tickets at www.rsol.org 

New York, New Jersey Elevate Lawn Phosphorus Debate | Safelawns Daily Post and Q&A Blog

Compile all the managed lawn surface in New York and New Jersey and, conservatively speaking, you’d probably be talking about 15 percent of the total lawn care industry in the United States. That puts billions of dollars and high emotion into play when the two states’ legislatures start passing lawn laws.

via www.safelawns.org

more on bad science > bad policy > bad legislation > unintended consequence: putting organics and small businesses out of business

To stop lawn fertilizer from polluting, do we have to kill off the organic fertilizer industry?

via www.gardenrant.com

Organic Mechanics is simply the BEST container garden/potting soil on the East Coast. It's also great for topdressing lightly on lawns being reseeded; those rice hulls and coir are better than straw, which blows away. (Thank you Mark, for helping Gentle Gardener client container gardens do so well.)

And, the checkered local/state phosphorus bans are just DUMB. If you want to garden sustainably, you need good root development, particularly as plants are being established in low organic matter % soils (pretty much everywhere in VA except for the forest floor). Phosphorus from organic sources gives you that to get started; healthy soil life keeps it going. Demonizing one element just confuses the public.

The point is: do what farmers MUST do: have a soil conservation/management plan: pretest, measure, (ignore what the land grant universities tell you to do, which is almost always to apply 10-10-10 no matter what their own lab test show), get a professional garden coach or sustainable landscape designer/organic horticulturalist help you interpret and apply the correct amounts of organics, preferably locally made.

Organic Mechanics has a huge location advantage, being within 400-500 miles (and thus 'local' per USDA and LEED USGBC) of much of the East Coast megaplex population.

Soil test, test microbial action via the soilfoodweb guys out West, apply the organics (including worm compost, mulches on top, green manures, cover crops and nitrogen fixing plants like leguminous trees and, ahem, clover), don't overdo ANYTHING, water, and heck, be patient, observant and not a picky perfectionist.

Do NOT let the "Perfect" be the Enemy of the Good......or the organic.......or the local......or the sustainable.

To stop lawn fertilizer from polluting, do we have to kill off the organic fertilizer industry?

the checkered local/state phosphorus bans are just DUMB. If you want to garden sustainably, you need good root development, particularly as plants are being established in low organic matter % soils (pretty much everywhere in VA except for the forest floor). Phosphorus from organic sources gives you that to get started; healthy soil life keeps it going. Demonizing one element just confuses the public.

RichmondGRID.com: A Green House on Grove

via www.richmondgrid.com

By our Sustainable Projects Manager, Scotty Guinn Dilworth of SGDesigns.

Scotty Designs Green ...roofs, living walls, living fences, rain gardens, and more, in association with Gentle Gardener Green Design and independently from her base in Richmond, Virginia.

Cleaning up the dirt? The Dirt on Potting Media (aka soil)

via www.gardenrant.com

Gentle Gardener makes its own sustainable container garden potting mix. 15 years ago in Great Britain gardeners started picketing/boycotting DIY stores and garden centers over peat based potting soil; I was at Findhorn and Kew and sat up and took notice. Took 10 years to develop supply chain of alternatives here in the clueless, cheap transport US.

A few steps to enlightened dirt/soil:

First, make your own compost and/or worm castings (compost), and aged leafmould (what the Brits call a pile of chipped/shredded leaves left for a year to decompose). Second, get locally made municipal compost if it's not all been sold to a commercial compost company locally. Third, buy only locally made compost from a reputable supplier, and ensure it doesn't have persistent herbicides in it. We have a very good one near Charlottesville from Panorama Farms called Panorama Paydirt. There are sometimes shortages due to demand. Our local worm compost is Black Gold Organics.

Coir Bricks are portable, peat-free potting media from a quickly renewable source (peat bogs.. not so quick). We supplied Brent Heath from Brent and Becky's Bulbs with coir for a container garden bulb planting workshop and he loved how the fibres give the root hairs of bulbs something to cling to. (He too is a Fafard peat fan but that's Canadian and not very sustainable from a transport perspective, not to the midAtlantic or South).

You need warm water and TIME to expand the coir. We mix in a muck bucket with the hot water, load and by the time we are at the job site, it's done. Extra bricks are portable and take up lots less room than bags/bales of promix. Extra worm compost helps too.

Mulching the tops of pots with coir chips, stones or moss or even found objects helps with soil loss. I too want to experiment with corel stones from the hydroponics folks.

As with so many other things, you get what you pay for, BUT, the best is homemade and free. Also a very good workout turning the compost from bin to bin to tumbler. I find shoveling this particular s... much more meditative and enjoyable than the corporate kind....

Tree Folks - Top Ten - 09: Trees increase your property value

 ..."benefit-cost analysis for Modesto's 90,000 street/park trees found $1.89 returned annually for every $1 invested in stewardship."

via www.treefolks.org

GOT TREE$?

YouTube - ‪wildflowercenter's Channel‬‎

Channel Views:711

via www.youtube.com

more agri-tainment, or agri-adventure: prescribed burn to prep for wildflower meadow. in august outside austin, tx, no less.

Today's Garden Center: Eastern Shore Nursery (VA) To Fill Rose Market Void #in

Seizing an opportunity to fill a void in the garden rose market resulting from the departure of major national growers, Eastern Shore Nursery of Virginia is broadly expanding its production of roses. The move comes as Conard-Pyle, parent of Star Roses, is withdrawing from finished plant container rose production and Jackson & Perkins has filed chapter 11, reports Scott McCaskey, account director at Goldman & Associates Public Relations.

via www.todaysgardencenter.com

the effects of the financial meltdown: shortages in new, improved, heirloom, tried & trued varieties of plants. inventories reduced at all levels: grower, rewholesaler, garden center.

Why custom plant buying from a VA Licensed Nursery Stock Reseller (Gentle Gardener Green Design) makes sense: we find what you WON'T find at retail for our landscape design clients only.

I.D. THE ROSE IN THE PIC AND COMMENT TO POST YOUR ANSWER ON OUR BLOG AND FACEBOOK PAGE...#in

moon gardens and white gardens

moon gardens:   to be experienced in evenings from the sanctuary of a master suite balcony.....white gardens to relieve the eye of the busy-ness of colour.....two gardens in central Virginia, Zones 6B and 7A. portfolio update at  http://web.me.com/gentlegardener
.   for more information, please contact [email protected].

via web.me.com

green. and pink. and white and chartreuse and blue and purple and and and SPRING!

So much biomass, so little time.  So much more colour, in so little time.  To paraphrase my teacher, David Orr, "If it's not beautiful, it's not sustainable."  The human impulse to shape nature into what we consider to be beautiful is fundamental and innate; we garden for sustenance and our prosaic needs, but the process sometimes shows us the way to poetry. 

This year:  the early bloomers were late and the late ones early:  the result of 4 months of snow on the ground, with #Mount Chipotle in the Barracks Rd Shopping Centre in Cville melting April 27 or so after accumulating since December 19 (roll your eyes if you must, Buffalo and Boston, but this is Virginia!).
Spring in central Virginia, in the Piedmont, yields so much so quickly, with temperatures seesawing between 26F yesterday morning, and 89F predicted tomorrow.  

Plants! Scarlet quince blooming in shade, intermittently, still! along with dogwood, aesculus x carnea 'Ft. McNair' pink horsechestnut, and now native fringe tree, chionanthus Virginicus, a bit early (fringe tree is usually a Mother's Day bloomer).

Native woodland phlox divaricata, mertensia virginica (VA Bluebells), and English and Spanish bluebells mingle companionably with helleborus foetidus, orientalis, and variegated false Solomon's seal (polygonatum falcatum variegatum). 
And the drama of native Quamash:  camassia, punctuating the garden. 

And yes, even the azalea:  on the north side of the farm office & studio, with hakenochloa 'All Gold', heuchera 'Amethyst Mist' and 'Citronelle', and tiarella, heucherella, variegated Solomon's seal, plus gold creeping jenny duking it out with the weeds.  Magnolia 'Kay Parris' did well in snow, 'Little Gem' not so well.  Osmanthus 'Goshiki', Cotinus 'Golden Spirit', and Pieris J. 'Valley Valentine' , plus my first ever camellia japonica left over from a garden show display last year, all appeared to LOVE being buried in a snow bank.
  Did I dig them out or fret or kvetch?  No.  I left the snow drifts to support the branches when the snow load off the roof let go in big heavy icy sheets.  Damage:  Minimal.

And is a designer's garden perfection?  Ha!  No, my garden has not been weeded.  We pruned the trees and shrubs of damage, my able farmer husband used the grapple rake on the tractor to claw it up into a burn pile, and on a cool March Sunday evening, we burned it.  That, and some rock phosphate on everything, was it.  Clients' gardens demanded my attention, and the 'shoemaker's children have...well, actually, lovely, careless, glorious shoes.......including ladyslippers along the wooded driveway.  We creep in the truck and count, a game each April since our daughter was two.  This year, we counted over 40 ladyslippers.  We are blessed with such mysterious riches.

Enough words.  Pictures are better.  Later, I'll post more to web.me.com/gentlegardener. 
when I have time, but meanwhile, here are a few shot with my iPhone: