Recent news has included discoveries of new planets, supernovas and even changes in the rates of the contraction of the original expansion of the Big Bang. A few friends have shared that these various cosmic phenomena make them feel a bit weird, depressed or anxious. In contrast, it makes me feel better, not worse. I love the idea of infinity, for example. And eternity as well. I want more, not less. I believe that living in eternity is what I, for one, am doing, and this is especially true in my job. Starlight has witnessed the drama of our millions of years. I am happy playing a mega-bit part.

Every day, as we establish the expanded “Heronswood East” display gardens at Fordhook Farm in Doylestown, PA, we relearn the many profound truths in American horticulture, all of which express its essential feature: space. Our nation possesses a lot of it. So much diversity is found in nearly 3.8 million square miles that one must reduce it, literally, to its parts.

We may as well begin somewhere:

The two main parts—quite relevant to our nursery and your regard of it—are the eastern half of the US and the western half. For example, whenever we hold our Heronswood East Open Days at Fordhook and folks come from hundreds of miles around Southeast Pennsylvania, we find it hard to hold their attention to our shade gardens. Why? The reason is simple: we are covered with shade trees in the Northeast and mid-Atlantic areas. Also, we have a longish winter. Generally, the same is true of the Southeast. Therefore, most people in the eastern half of the US love full sun gardens with a deep passion, just as they adore the sky, as in the mountains or at the beach (called “the shore” in these parts). We like what we lack, so to speak. If you dwell in a forest, you like to get out in the open.

Contrast this to the western half of the US where—except for the mountains—there are relatively few trees and, generally, almost no forests. Mainly, the reason is lack of moisture. The primary sensation is of sun and cloudless sky—relentless and rarely broken by large stands of deciduous trees. Of course the Pacific Northwest is the exception, which is why millions flock there in the summer.

Therefore, gardeners in the western half of the US tend to prefer shade gardens. Thus, most ornamental gardens are generally shaded or semi-shaded in the plains states and due west, until you reach the narrow strip of the cool and cloudy Pacific coastline.

In the eastern half, meadow plants and full sun gardens are generally preferred. Easterners hunger for the sky, and the bigger, the better. It is amusing, since it mirrors somewhat the way that westerners edge their way out of the sun and into the shade. However, the Southeast does represent an exception to this rule, but only in midsummer when the outdoor focus is sitting beside a coleus, impatiens and hosta glowing under a very large shade tree. Otherwise, stay indoors!

With the exception of the Deep South (our “Pacific Northwest”) in the summer, this bifurcation has challenged us at Heronswood to make sure we “cover all the bases”. Do we wish to create a simulation of our original full shade garden at Kingston, WA, here in Doylestown, PA? OK, but we have also to “vary the line” as Bernard Berenson said to an aspiring young artist. Few Easterners gravitate happily to a deep shade garden. They’d rather enjoy open meadow gardens, borders and full sun rare shrubs and trees such as those we have established at Fordhook Farm. We’ll have several Open Houses and plant sales next spring and summer. Generally speaking, wild horses couldn’t drag visitors into our shade gardens, even though they are extraordinary. Only the better-experienced or well-travelled gardeners “dig” our shade gardens in PA.

However, in Kingston, WA, it’s like the recent Geico radio commercial: “Give me shade, give me shade and, oh yeah, give me shade!” During winter, full-sun ornamental gardening in the Southwest is fine, when you can pull it off, particularly in southern coastal California. From Santa Barbara to San Diego is like a waking dream in winter. But generally (and this includes the Deep South as well), give western folks the deep shade. They like to look at it as well as relax in it.

At our research gardens in Heronswood East, our focus is both shifting and expanding to include a bit more full-sun plants, which you will see also in our new 56 page catalogue coming to you in late December, and on our website even sooner.

Ironically, in our research gardens at Heronswood West we lost several large Douglas Firs, thereby gaining a few thousand square feet of direct sunlight smack dab in the middle of the “Big Bang”, our deepest shade collection garden. This should create genetic selection pressure (i.e., some will die) and new results and effects over the next few years—interesting especially to our traditional Pacific Northwest customers.

My mother was born in the pine woods of western South Carolina: flat and covered in full to partial shade except near the roads, on the farms and in town. Then she married Dad and moved up to Chicago’s western suburbs, which are full of tall oaks, maples and ironwoods. Dark, dark and, oh yeah, more dark. Very beautiful, but dark! Occasionally, she would drive us kids out to the middle of the gigantic parking lot of the new big shopping center when it finally came to town. “Just look at the sky—isn’t it wonderful?” And it truly was a unique sight, like we’d suddenly risen into the sky. She actually preferred the parking lot to the store. To this day, I love that parking lot.

The “New American Gardening” I referred to in my last post is based partly on this type of effect. Much of inhabited Europe was blown to smithereens—trees included—during World War II. There opened vast open spaces, either battlefields, ruined or obliterated villages and towns or now-empty fortresses, bases and airstrips. What to do? An entire garden industry emerged from the civic movement and parks projects that resulted. Often they filled the empty spaces with the wide palette of meadow grasses and tall perennials found in the US and Russian mid-continents. That’s the origin of Rudbeckia ‘Goldsturm’, Echinacea purpurea ‘Magnus’ and the designs of Oehme, Van Sweden and Oudolf. Hardly a deep shade plant to be found.

But fear not, partial-to-full-shade-plant lovers. We at Heronswood Nursery are conducting research in both shade and sun and doing so on both coasts. For our deep-fried southern friends, we test also in the heat and humidity of southern Delaware, so both you and my maternal ancestors will be happy. I have got to keep my maternal ancestors happy.

Keep watching for upcoming dates and thanks for gardening in “eternity”.

Some garden writers seem to have an obsession with lawns.  Michael Pollan’s erroneous but extremely influential 1991 op/ed in The New York Times kicked off a two decade landscape architect parlor game.  However, the debate over the ecological and environmental value of lawns is much older.  Front or back worse?  Side lawn okay?  Organic lawn possible?  Fuel consumed by lawn mowers morally defensible?  Water sprinklers, same thing?

After more than 30 years, the anti-lawn/pro-lawn controversy rages on.  While I have no skin in this game, I do have opinions after a long career in horticulture.  Since lawns and gardens are a bit like love and marriage, it is hard for someone in the gardening industry to stay off the grass, so to speak.

Recently, I had a pleasant email exchange with an enthusiast in the “anti-lawn” movement.  It reminded me not only of my post (‘Lawn Love’) from 2009, but also of how these arguments can light up American horticulture from the inside.  Gardening in the US is not “one thing”, as it is in, say, the UK, Italy, France or Japan.  Our nation is monumentally diverse.  (Please read about my public attempt to redefine “American horticulture” at the blog ‘Virtual Horticulture’.)

An extremist (versus an enthusiast)  I have talked with works as a garden designer in LA.  He hates lawns:  the idea, history, science, beauty, value to communities in homes and parks, etc.  But this is somewhat understandable, from an ecological view, because he is from arid Los Angeles.  Naturally, he advocates zealously for alternatives to large lawns.  However, what is bizarre is that he hates all lawns, including those in non-southern California-type environments.  The passion of his misguided environmentalist extremism blinds him to the aesthetic values and sensual pleasures that lawns provide for millions of people across the US.  In fact, the beauty and utility of lawns “hide in plain sight”.  Lawns are pleasant and useful. Also, they appeal to both our pastoral and agricultural origins:  little patches of nature.  Similarly, gardens remind us of our roots in ancient civilization.  Yet, “anti-lawn” extremists talk about how nasty and environmentally damaging they are.  Imagine:  lawns are hurting the planet.  It’s like saying make-up is harmful to a woman’s health.

At least the anti-lawn debate shows that the US is a complex patchwork of widely diverse climates and microclimates.  Most lawns make gracefully contrasting companions for ornamental gardens and handsome frames or surroundings for vegetable plots in most areas of the country.  (I explain this in great detail in ‘Lawn Love’.) Yet, “anti-lawnism” reaches every corner of the nation like a virus in a horror movie.  Perhaps it’s a result of poor high school biology classes.

It seems obvious to most folks that if you are in an area that is bone-dry, you should not have a yard dominated by a water-dependent lawn.  It is both unattractive as well as unsustainable in energy and water crises.  The LA “extremist” is not an extremist if he is talking about LA and its surrounding areas.  But what business does he have getting in my Mid-Atlantic face?  I don’t disparage his groundcovers.  In fact, I sell some to him.  Why does he disrespect my lawn?

Some of the answers can be traced to the popularity of environmental extremism.  Few walk to work anymore; far more people drive.  Thus, pollution and dependence on fossil fuels.  Add man-made global warming and the result is a public outcry against the impact of the front lawn, in particular.   It is somewhat irrational, but life is not fair.  A family can drive a quarter mile to grocery shop, pay $4.00 for a single cup of flavored coffee, or pay $9.00 to see a movie that gives them grimacing indigestion, but rail against lawns.

Another part of the answer is the romance of the “New American garden” movement which began about 25 years ago, based on the landscape architect Wolfgang Oehme.  With his partner, James Van Sweden, they operated a very successful business, including estate gardens for Oprah Winfrey and many other notables.  They made great use of tall meadow grasses.  Most of their ideas derived from European public park design.  Their work is masterful and their gardens breathtakingly spectacular.  They are romantic, as in the Romantic era.  This is not a commonplace approach.  One doesn’t walk down the street whistling Beethoven.

But soon the food journalist Michael Pollan decided to take on the ubiquity—and in his mind, therefore, monotony—of the American lawn.  He is the best-selling college professor who excoriated my company in The New York Times Sunday Magazine for breeding, producing and selling hybrid sweet corn seeds.  Heirlooms had become the rage a few years earlier, due to Kent Whealy receiving the glamorous MacArthur genius grant, and well deserved too.  Now Pollan could safely criticize the hybridizers.

As I said in my previous post ‘Lawn Love’, Pollan criticizes lawn grasses as reflecting “the institution of democracy”.  This bothers him.  He wants our yards to reflect only our personal tastes.  However, what is wrong with democracy?  Don’t towns base their politics on this institution?  What other institutions would he prefer?  Or is it more just a “liberation movement” within the gardening industry?  If so, I’m all for it.  But freedom means freedom of choice, as reflected in our catalogues, and those of many others in the industry.  On lawns, as on hybrid seeds, Pollan comes across as a tyro.

For example, one finds little discussion of choice or of freedom in Pollan’s writing—food or gardening—and that is what makes him extremely popular.  He is “the authority”.  Despite their better natures, people increasingly prefer authority.  He tells people what to do, and he told the Clintons they should tear out the White House lawn and replace it with a wild meadow.  Thank goodness the National Parks System “runs” the White House and they, as well as the Clintons, wisely ignored him.  But The New York Times loves him, as do many garden writers.  He is a good but uneven writer.  Try getting through the section of  Omnivore’s Dilemma where he shoots, cooks and eats a pig, or the other where he studies his emotional responses to the sensate activities of a chicken as he is slaughtering it.  Is it supposed to be funny?  Ironic?  Satirical? Whatever it is, it is certainly vague.  Perhaps it is “post modern”:  explicitly vague authority.

Then there is “the illogical group”.  These elitists say that meadows and prairie recreations should be situated in or near urban areas.  Huh?  Is it to teach “the townies” a lesson?  Some say also that lawns are ugly in small cities and suburban areas.  How can anyone say that a lawn is ugly?  That’s like saying a horse is ugly.  Such sweeping condemnations make no sense.  Educated critics should be specific and factual.  Yet, strangely, these folks think, in some cases, that lawns are okay in public parks.  But that is exactly the kind of high-traffic space where the inclusion of a meadow restoration would be educational as well as ecologically valuable.

(This entire brouhaha actually originates in a fairly low key movement to restore Midwestern prairie grasses back in the 60s and early 1970s.  The radical extremists came into the picture over 20 years later.  Aldo Leopold was the father of the prairie restoration movement.   A colleague of Frank Lloyd Wright, Jens Jensen was one of the first advocates of restoration landscape architecture.  However, he liked lawns too. The physicists at the Fermilab Accelerator facility recreated a native prairie near my childhood home in Illinois, probably as a hobby to relieve their stress, as well as their boredom with the corn and soybean fields.  They even started a buffalo herd.  It was exciting and had absolutely nothing to do with lawns.)

So, let’s summarize.  A lawn is frowned upon at your private property, where it can, with a garden bed here and there, make an ordinary house look gorgeous?  But it is okay in a public park, which is one of the few places where an appropriate ecological restoration of native grasses or meadow plants makes sense, because there’s adequate space?  And a farm estate?  Okay to have a lawn, because it looks beautiful.  But in a small city garden? Such a lawn looks ridiculous, according to some.

Next door to us the Philadelphia Electric Company (PECO) plant is in the start of  its third year of a “native meadow” restoration.  They tore out the lawn and planted what looks like hay.  Now it seems like an abandoned factory, like no one works there. “Out of Business”.  One sees the same types of growth—the same “anti-aesthetic”—in derelict urban areas.  Check out the rustbelt cities of the Eastern US:  mile after mile of empty factories and 1950s office buildings surrounded by weeds and grasses, mostly native but some exotic.  It looks awful.  The meadow in front of the PECO plant might look terrific in a few years, especially if they get some attractive looking meadow plants—say something blooming with color.  But here’s the problem:  the building was designed for a lawn.  The windows, doors, roof line—everything about it was created to fit onto a large, attractive and pleasant lawn.

Yet, it is not entirely an aesthetic issue.  Since a meadow “goes wild”, it is supposed to be cheaper and less harmful to the environment.  But eventually it will be mowed. How often?  What if it gets diseases?  How much will the tests and treatment cost?  And there are both “critter” problems as well as security risks.  A five foot tall meadow border casts a shadow along a building, providing cover for burglars.  How much will the new lighting fixtures cost?  Would you like this problem in your home?  Why not have lawns with garden beds?

Few in the blogoverse notice Julie Messervy or Sarah Susanka’s great work.  This is unfortunate.  “The illogical group” could learn a lot from this electrifying team of architect and garden designer.  They are like an updated version of Gertrude Jekyll and Edwin Lutyens, who revolutionized English landscape architecture, garden design and domestic architecture in one fell swoop.  Messervy and Susanka could help new architects work out new designs, balancing the public’s alarm with lawns with the needs of home and business buildings .

The Romantic, Pollanesque group?  They are soldier-children.  It will probably lose steam over time as many “enthusiast” movements do.  Going overboard is not a good nautical strategy.  But there is still a huge base of support for the “anti-lawnists”.  I wish only that they would look around at what the consumers want.  They like—and want—both lawns and gardens.

Ironically, I have nothing to do with the lawn business.  I have never sold a grain of lawn grass.  I simply like lawns.  Friends have said it’s a bit odd that I “champion” them, when I sell garden seeds, ornamental grasses and perennial plants.  They say I am at cross purposes with myself.  However, I try to look at the “whole”.   Call me “Gaia Man”.  The anti-lawn movement concerns me because a nationwide rejection of lawns—even supported by well-meaning people—upsets a great tradition of home life: the perennial border, annual bed and vegetable garden surrounded by a lawn, or vice versa.  And I believe that deep rooted traditions should be preserved.

So I, too, try to be well meaning.  But ever since I reached adulthood, I have not appreciated extremists and extremism, such as environmentalists torching SUVs.  It is part of growing up.  The fight is for the objective and dispassionate truth, as Aristotle suggested.  It is not a personal fight.  Or, as William Carlos Williams said, “No truth but in things.”

We at Heronswood Nursery, Burpee and The Cook’s Garden provide our customers with choices.  Recently, I was disparaged online for comparing Heronswood to Jaguar (sexy and glamorous), Burpee to Ford (A to Z) and The Cook’s Garden to Volvo (safety).  But it’s not a bad analogy.  Everything you want for your garden in a wide range from Burpee; the exotic and strangely beautiful from Heronswood; the European and Asian accented gourmet greens, vegetable and herb rarities from The Cook’s Garden.

Championing the lawn?  No, I am just trying to help the traditional garden industry.

Four years ago, I nearly came out of my skin with excitement about “GL 581c“, the second planet from the star (“a”), which is the GL, which stands for Gliese, the name of the astronomer who discovered it. So, the star—or sun—is Gliese. I do not know what the 581 stands for. Matrix number, most likely.

But now they have found an even more likely “earth”—and, to say the very least, this is a huge development. It is called “GL 581g” (I like the “g” part), meaning it is sixth from the sun’s “a” status. While it is in our galaxy, it is not so far that we could not find it.

Furthermore, it is well within range of the earth’s temperature and appears to have possibly all the other features that planets need to support water and, thus—though the greatest mystery—an atmosphere. Estimated at about 20 light years, it is relatively close. A couple of centuries from now and we’ll be opening up “Gliese Seeds and Plants”.

I’m joking.

I made another lame joke about the previous planet last time. Now I feel foolish. This one looks very promising. It is not often that NASA issues a report so encouraging. It is inconceivable. This is not a science fiction movie, but an actual planet very likely to have life on it. The creatures? I actually don’t care much for the thought of new animals or humans. Somehow I have little interest in the possibility of them. If there was ever a case in favor of “social media”, interplanetary communication would be it.

Although I would like to try the seafood.

Needless to say, I cannot wait to see the plants.

Much is made of the aesthetic difference between the season long “show” of flowers and the end-of-season vegetable harvest. Keen gardeners know that a garden can be more nuanced than this; and, on closer inspection, most gardens are successional in both vegetable and flower form, from the beauty of the spring lettuces to the harvest of summer and fall cutting gardens. All garden plants “accompany” each other, literally and figuratively.

I love the late summer and fall gardens most of all. Perhaps the joy of an early September birthday sets my original sensory impressions—58 “feathers” strong—aloft. Sometimes I fancy that my totem animal is the hawk . I often see them this time of year flying so high that they disappear. A few seconds later, they lower their arc and reappear—faint and tiny wings, auguries hundreds of feet high. Why do they circle so high in September? Fatter mice? Not likely. Taking their bearings for the day’s journey south? Cooling off? Looking for a newborn to announce? I like to think so. For every heron visiting Fordhook Farm, we have a dozen hawks.

I like the tallness of autumn plants. Maturity makes even the small tall. The garden’s effulgence is deeply satisfying. Even the shortest plants grace the height of the tallest trees. From toe to head, the garden surrounds and comforts us. In return, I meditate on them during long walks. I accompany them, strumming some with my hands. Their branches brush my shoulders, especially the late summer grasses.

I asked our excellent photographer to “strum” some plants last week. Mary Kliwinski, a naturally gifted artist, acquitted herself very well. As did our gifted gardening staff.

Hydrangea ‘Limelight’ adds luxuriousness to the Springhouse Garden at Fordhook Farm, framed by a branch of the old magnolia that broadens itself to cover the 200 year old original structure, now ruined and beautifully aging.

Rudbeckia maxima, also aging its seed heads, standing tall.  A great “strumming plant”.

Grasses and their accent companions are serenely strummable.  An Echinacea peeps up lower left to set the greats into relief.  Near it is an upright brown Calamagrostis acutiflora ‘Karl Foerster’, named for the great Swabian horticulturist.   Right foreground is Pennisetum orientale ‘Karley Rose’.  At a distance it is truly rosy.  Miscanthus sinensis ‘Silberfeder’ and ‘Cosmopolitan’ strum across the back, with Eulalia blowing up in the middle.  This lovely landscape is just a small part of our “Happiness Garden”.

A wetter strum can be found by simply turning around about 100° in the “Happiness”, as we call it.  Eupatorium ‘Gateway’ on the right, the fulsome and exquisite Panicum virgatum ‘Cloud Nine’ in the center, and some Iris and Ferns helping the frame.

A few strums along the Happiness path is a more classic late summer scene.  Fordhook Farm is a poignant place.  It may not be Blenheim, but it’s not unlike it.  Phlox, Physocarpus and Helenium autumnale ‘Red and Yellow Shades’ at right; Solidago ‘Fireworks’—one of the greatest recent cultivars due to its truly explosive looking inflorescences;  Rudbeckia ‘Herbstonne’ (“Autumn Shades”  in German); with Eupatoria ‘Gateway’; and Rudbeckia triloba filling out the scene.

A closer look still.  The Physocarpus opulifolius or Ninebark by its common name, is the cultivar ‘Summer Wine’, a real beauty.  The Rudbeckia nitida ‘Herbstonne’ again perks up back right.  Eupatorium ‘Gateway’, or Joe Pye Weed.  ‘Gateway’ is spectacular in every setting; it is species purpureum and subspecies  maculatum:  a real knockout selection.  In the back is our new (last year) Cedrus deodara or Himalayan Cedar.

Speaking of plant exploration, I often wonder how the apple became so phenomenally great.  It is perhaps the greatest fruit tree in the world, if not the greatest small tree period.  It can grow almost everywhere.  While the fruit varies widely, it always bears in as little as a few years from planting.  Civilization wouldn’t be the same without it.  To the right is Coreopsis tripteris or Tall Tickseed, giving the apple a little strum.  What’s your favorite apple?  (Mine is ‘Macoun’.)

To the right is one of the many stars that make up our galaxy.  We are extremely fortunate to have it just so.  Lucky also to be able to photograph it.  On the left is Hibiscus coccineus, the most brilliant red of the mallows.

Here she is again, peeping up behind the strumming Coreopsis tripteris or Tall Tickseed.  One of the more elegant photos Mary Kliwinski has taken, and she’s taken many such ones.

Once more.  Her common name is Scarlet Rose Mallow, but it hardly does her justice.  She is a complicated species,  as you’ll see a bit later.

Lagerstroemia indica or Crupe Myrtle.  Many breeders have dwarfed it, compacted it, shaded its many colors—but Lagerstroemia indica is my favorite.  Like a spruce-top, maple-backed and sided 6 string acoustic guitar, it’s both common and beautifully made.

More to strum in the “Happiness”.  Lobelia siphilitica or Great Blue Lobelia is up front with Eupatorium ‘Little Joe’ at its left and the great Rudbeckia laciniata in the back.  Note how the brown-eyed Susan “laces” as she begins going to seed here in late summer.

Mary has caught here one of my favorite flowering plants.  I used to produce a special strain of Lobelia cardinalis in Costa Rica when I worked for the great breeder and seed grower Claude Hope 30 years ago.  We grew it for Benary, a German seed company.  It is especially luminous in its native subtropical environment.  Yet observe how sensationally strong its color holds even here in North American during an extremely hot and dry summer.

This deceptive view shows a Helianthus giganteus or Giant Sunflower (but not the common sunflower), a blowsy 7 foot tall stunner, most of the year bedecked with hundreds of small yellow blooms.  At least 7 feet.   Front and center is a common version of Hibiscus moscheutos Rose Mallow—not a far different selection from “Scarlet”, but lighter colored and earlier to go to seed.  Eupatorium coelestinum or Blue Mist flower skips along the bottom of the frame.  “Coelestinum” means, more or less, “heavenly”.  Flowers are notoriously difficult to photograph, with the blues being the toughest to duplicate.  It actually looks a bit purplish here, but it’s actually more sky blue.

See what I mean?  Hibiscus moscheutos or Rose Mallow has many varied traits at its stages of growth.  A great personality.  Eminently photographable too.

Another look.

Hibiscus coccineus – The aforementioned Scarlet Rose Mallow shows her underside.  These are seed pods just beginning to form.  Note the spidery sepals and handsome red stems.

In the Burpee Kitchen Garden at Fordhook Farm we like to plant tall, “strumming” cut flowers, including the recent cultivar Gomphrena ‘Fireworks’, and here it earns its name.

More strummable cuts:  Zinnia ‘Purple Prince’, Cosmos ‘Sensation Mix’ and Zinnia ‘Jazzy Mix’, left to right with some excellent strumming Cosmos shooting up the back, as typical of most plants in the late season.

Laden with seed, his job done, ‘American Giant’ bows his head to the sun as if in homage.

A “later” cultivar, both chronologically in terms of its recency and metabolically in terms of its days to maturity, than the much older ‘American Giant’, ‘Kong’ keeps watch, so to speak.  Quite a spectacular cultivar, if not quite as large-headed.  Here it is at least 12′  high.

‘American Giants’ again.  It’s huge head is almost a foot across and it is consistently 10-12 feet high.  I like how it “flows” as it bends from the weight of the seed heads.  It ages gracefully, as they say.  Suggestive of the many photographs of the now common “flowing” grasses, such as Hakonechloa macra ‘Aureola’, an extremely popular grass with our customers.

Back at the Burpee Kitchen Garden, a view of the uniquely handsome ‘Cappuccino’, the brownish-red sunflower on the right, and ‘Sunny Bunch’, a popular and very floriferous and pollen-free cutting sunflower on the left.  Mary catches them cinematically through dried out sweet corn tops.

Salve, centurions! Something Roman movie-like about this scene. But this is how it’s done in an experimental row trial. These are all experimentals—soon to be in your garden, we hope. They are strong stemmed, tall and distinctively petalled.

Strumming with light this time. The sun plays here on the leaves and spikes of florets of the moisture-loving Pontaderia cordata. Already the late summer asserts its sharply angled afternoon light. Soft but sharp—nothing quite like it, since the sun meets so little vegetation in spring. Note our new pond in the background of our shade gardens at Fordhook Farm.

Panicum virgatum ‘Cloud Nine’ expresses the essence of  “strumming plants” in the late afternoon Happiness Garden.  In gardening, the sky can be your canvas.

Our Gingko biloba out in the front, near the welcome sign to Fordhook Farm.

Thanks for listening.

David Mamet wrote, “Money buys you things.” As with communication, it is the context of money that gives it meaning. The same words can light up a listener’s life, or bore another to death.

So money can buy food, shelter and clothing; but the same amount can ruin your soul or tear a family apart. It is the instrument of good in one hand or greed in another. Greed has nothing to do with money. Rather it’s the lust for power and use of that power for wasteful narcissistic purposes. Financial reporters should major in psychology—not journalism.

I have a friend who lives in the eastern part of my adopted home state of Pennsylvania amidst the dairy farms, corn and soybean farms, small metal fabrication workshops, lumberyards and woodworkers. Lately, there’s been a burgeoning growth of commuters to NYC, some 50 to 75 miles away, depending on the borough or suburb of their workplace. The region is beautiful: classically bucolic with deep woods, winding creeks and gently high and low rolling hills.

Recently, he told me that the local school system decided to replace the football field in his small town with Astroturf.  The cost is incredible, approaching high six figures. That a relatively small school district would allocate resources toward sports and not toward music and painting, is appalling. Everyone agrees that team sports help to build character. But who talked himself into the decision that a rural school would benefit from Astroturf? And, more important, how?

Greed is a particularly tragic sin, because it destroys everything it touches. In Pennsylvania, football has become not merely a religion, but a very big business. However, no state is immune to the disease of the lust for power. A state needs only look to the federal government for inspiration. When a state college football coach earns more than its president, something’s wrong. The solution is to confess and repent the sin of greed. 

As usual, the devil finds work for idle hands. It begins, of course, with parents. Some do not instill enough non-materially oriented values. This is one of the reasons Freud disliked the US—it was like a pre-adolescent nation back in his day (the 1920s and 30s). He likened it to an unconscious child: a mass of humanity obsessed with things—more and more things. He also noted that “fun” was becoming a sort of normative state of the American mind. Today, over 80 years later, he’d be horrified.

Second, are the school boards.  They argue most of the time, rather than debate the best method to help students achieve an education.  Next come the teachers, principals and superintendents.  For some their main interests are, first, to keep their jobs and, second, to make them easier to perform.  So, what do any of these folks care about the waste of funds used to buy Astroturf?  Not much, if anything at all.  No one “loves” the ideals; no one takes “ownership” of the kids’ education.  Education has become, like football, a business.  Check out the textbook industry.  It is, in crude business terms, “a gusher”, “a gold mine”, etc.  A business, furthermore, in which there are no competitors, save a handful of “charter schools”, religious schools (thank God) and the tiny home-school community.

Think about high school soccer versus high school football.  One requires almost no equipment, the other a virtual warehouse of armor.  One causes frequent injuries that plague a person the rest of his life.  The other involves actually “faking” injuries.  Or take high school wrestling.  No injuries.  Hardly any money required.  Hello?

Parsing the Mamet quote, you find that “money” means as much what it is not, as what it is. One expects Mamet, like any great contemporary writer, to expand on the subject, but he limits himself to one pithy sentence. “Buys” keeps it simple—the most obvious verb. Again, he’s focusing on what he isn’t telling you. Which brings us to “you”—keeping it directly personal. This isn’t about the other guy. Money is never about someone else. But “things” is the key: he is reducing money to the medium of exchange for the mostly prosaic things that money buys. Forget about services, or about “material prosperity”, as in Jefferson’s definition of “happiness”. Those days are gone, replaced by a sort—a mild sort for some, stronger for others—of existential Astroturf. Why not spend the money?

It should be noted, at this point, that Mamet is the only writer who is consistently faithful to Freud. He knows his work well, probably read every word Freud wrote. Thus, he knows that Freud evolved from beginning to end. Did he err at times? Who doesn’t? (I fantasize sometimes about an all-night radio show about Freud. I could host it.)

I know several electrical engineers, all working in the many different forms of electrical energy. Electricity is elegantly simple, similar to water but much more powerful. All these friends went to engineering schools, which are fascinating in their contrast, on the one hand, to liberal arts schools, and in their similarity, on the other, to music schools or conservatories.

Here’s the traditional routine in electrical engineering college:  every year you take one class with the same teacher. It lasts from 8 am to 3 pm, with a morning break and lunch from noon to 1 pm. The teacher lays it on heavy in the morning and then lightens up a bit in the afternoon, reviewing the morning and setting up the next day. Maybe a surprise quiz, maybe not. There’s no homework; you learn in the class. It sounds familiar because it’s exactly the same routine as grade school. Except now you’re in your late teens and early twenties. There are usually two tests per semester, with the “final” being a pass or fail portal to the next year. Of course, you study at home for the four exams; but, if you aren’t “working” during class, you won’t make it past year one. Engineering schools usually last four years. Some colleges and universities have two year programs that run through the entire 12 month year. They tend to cater both to kids whose families don’t have “four-year” money, as well as to low-income foreigners.

Music education is similar, except you have two or three teachers. It’s not as straightforward as electricity.  Also, being an art form based on sensory aptitudes, it is more subjective than electrical engineering. Otherwise it’s the same as engineering:  “old school”, so to speak.  For instance, counterpoint is a specialty usually taught by masters, steeped in the church music of the Baroque period. You study Bach until you think you’re going to have a nervous breakdown, and then study more. No big money involved, and certainly no greed.

Imagine how public education would be if “grade school” and perhaps, later, the junior high format were used throughout high school and, even better, college and university. Why let the engineers have all the fun? High school could be completed by 16 instead of 17, higher education could be an experience to carry with you to your grave, instead of the odd blend of vacation and high school that most college experiences are now.

Relevance to gardening?  All my electrical friends garden, and many of their colleagues at ABB, GE and Bechtel do too. Another thing—many are from rural or semi-rural backgrounds.  Agriculture and horticulture are based, like electricity, on a natural system and your mastery and manipulation of it. Electrical engineering is remarkably creative, as, of course, is gardening.  Problems, solutions, beginnings, conclusions, new problems, ad infinitum.
 
Certainly, gardening isn’t “Astroturf”. And it doesn’t involve much money. This is the wisdom of the ancients: money is not “the root of all evil” as is often misquoted. It is “at the root of all evil”—a very different meaning, turning on a simple preposition.

So, as we approach the school year, let’s hear it for the grade school format for higher education in the liberal arts, the “master electricians”, the “master gardeners”.  And let’s hear it for playing musical instruments.

As for Astroturf?  Why not just rip it up next year and replace it with grass? Then fire the school board.  Now that would build character.

P.S.  About the blog title: there were few, if any, better, more powerful or dynamic live stage performers than Cyndi Lauper during the late 1980s. Her musical director was Rick Derringer (of ‘Hang on Sloopy’ fame) who also played guitar about 15 feet off to her left side, out of the bright spotlight.  ‘Money Changes Everything’ was her extended finale (or was it the encore?).  She went on with it for over 10 minutes.  What a voice!   Already nuts, the crowd went wild.

Grace Romero is our Research Director. Here she is demonstrating the hybridization process to members of the press on August 19th. We received about 20 media folks per day for two days. This is in the Kitchen Garden at Fordhook Farm looking due south. It was hot, dry and gorgeous.

Burpee Kitchen Garden looking north-northwest, mid-day, August 18th

Kitchen Garden looking west. It was a “hat day”. Sun block was also a very good idea, as it is any summer day.

Steve Wright is our Vice President of Supply Chain Management. No Steve—no shipping season. He is on the left. Christos Romas is our President and on the right is Bill MacDowell, President from 1970 to 1980, when he was appointed the first non-family president since the company was founded in 1876. Bill is an industry legend, still very active in gardening and local civic affairs, and a good friend.

No media day at Burpee, The Cook’s Garden and Heronswood Nursery is complete without “graceful” and truly stunning flower arrangements from our Research Director, Grace Romero. Here’s just one.

Blossom-end shots of one of our terrific new summer squashes for 2011, Camouflage, is both strikingly beautiful and deliciously versatile in the kitchen. This is one of the varieties of squash used for our famous “Fast Food Alchemy” hamburgers.

Three of our finest tomatoes of recent vintage. On the right is 2003’s now famous ‘Brandy Boy’, the first successfully hybridized heirloom, being a cross of ‘Big Boy’, a delicious, early and high-yielding red hybrid, with ‘Brandywine’, a late, low-yielding but tangy—almost “smoky” pink heirloom. ‘Brandy Boy’ combines the best of both worlds and already one of our top sellers.

In the middle is ‘Sweet Seedless’ from 2009. Some of us cannot handle tomato seeds in our diet. ‘Sweet Seedless’ is also remarkably sweet, for those who also don’t care for the acidic taste or its possible effects on the tummy when eaten fresh. ‘Sweet Seedless’ is the answer to these prayers, as well as high-yielding, early and disease-tolerant. It’s a delicious tomato that heirloom purists have criticized for being “seedless”. These folks take one bite and then we never hear about it again. The same took place over the seedless watermelon 20 years ago, but there weren’t so many purists back then.

On the left is ‘Orange Wellington’ the “sleeper” of last year’s 2010 Burpee introductions. Most folks find non-red tomatoes to be generally inferior to red due to their perception that the darker the color, the better the taste. Not always true. Especially not true with ‘Orange Wellington’, which I liken in flavor to Beef Wellington, and I am not exaggerating. Its bold orange to gold skin extends also to its interior “flesh” color. But its flavor and texture fresh, stewed, used in relishes or marinara—will blow you away. It’s actually tastier then most reds.

The 2011 tomato varieties will be announced soon. They will have some tough competition from these recent introductions and customer favorites.

A quaint close up of our kitchen garden. We use wooden stakes because we have to adapt and adjust to dying plants, since we evaluate them closely in their last stages of life. Sounds awful, but it’s just a matter of judging pathology, which is the “secret heart” of gardening research. “How healthy?”, is somewhat the ultimate question, no pun intended. For normal cropping—harvest—the wire or metal cages or supports that are sold by us and others are perfectly adequate. Heirlooms, however, tend to need a bigger cage, due to their lateness in flowering and fruiting, compared to modern hybrids. Heirlooms need “more plant” or vegetative growth and time in the sun, before they reproduce and yield their precious harvest.

‘Coconut Ice’ is the first true white sunflower, and it’s a beauty. Many attempts have been made, but ‘Coconut Ice’ is the real McCoy. Also, it has a light lime throat or corolla at the base of the white bracts or “petals”. The seed head, which is the sunflower’s actual flower head, with hundreds of tiny botanical florets comprising it, looks just like a coconut, especially as the summer progresses. Since white has a “cooling” effect in the flower garden, we decided on ‘Coconut Ice’. New and exclusive for 2011.

Now for the “Fast Food Alchemy” lunch, and quite a feast it was—both extremely unusual and delicious. Here is Grace Romero having a “hot dog” which is actually about 15% lean pork that we used only as a “filler” for the real flavor, the two new 2011 peppers we magically mixed into a Vienna-style sausage. All the relishes were also made of fresh-picked Burpee varieties.

The great writer and creative director Fayette Hickox is trying to catch every word spoken by the alchemy wizard and “guilt-free fast food” designer Miryana Navarro-Monzo, who is making sure no one is missing a bun or roll.

The fine garden designer and blogger, James Golden (View from Federal Twist), is helping himself to our special version of the “BLT”: broccoli, leeks and tomato with a “toast” made of chick pea (garbanzo bean) flour. The tomato used was last year’s ‘Tye-Dye’, an incredibly gorgeous tomato inside and out, as well as quite tasty. ‘Tye-Dye’ leaves any comparable heirloom—or hybrid, even—in the dust. Not as hefty or meaty as Orange Wellington, but uniquely pretty, in a way I’ve never seen in my career, on both vine and plate. Or, in this case, in a vegetable version of the “BLT”.

Children were a big part of Media Days this year. We wanted to see how they would respond to “fast food” made 80-90% out of fresh picked vegetables that had been used raw, sautéed or deep fried in grape seed oil.

Hamburgers, hot dogs and even hush puppies. The orange relish-like sauce is made from the aforementioned ‘Orange Wellington’. The kids loved everything.

Same shot in the shade of the verandah. We made also burrito, a spring roll, the “BLT” which deserves a solo shot, and a series of “wraps”, since they are a form of fast food that is becoming popular.

Here is the fantastic alchemist Miryana preparing one of the wraps or maybe the burrito. She is an artist whose canvas happens to be a plate. In this case, the first truly guilt-free junk food the world has ever seen. No kidding. Just ask the children or the media who wisely showed up.

Grace Romero from the front this time, as the cameras rolled and the press looked on. She is emasculating a tomato plant: turning it into a seed parent or “mother” plant in a one-way hybrid cross, of which we make thousands to experiment until we find the perfect combination of genes for our purposes or beyond our wildest dreams, in some cases. Hybridization simply speeds up what nature does slowly. The Aztecs were the first to hybridize tomatoes. By the time the Spaniards arrived, they had bred dozens of distinct cultivars.

Tomato means “quickly swells” in one of the Aztec languages. If you don’t have tweezers, you can emasculate a tomato flower with a pair of unusually long fingernails. The Aztecs probably had tweezers; archeologists haven’t found them yet. They might have been made from quills or thin bones.

Miryana directing the kids who were a bit confused about the process of making their own hot dogs and hamburgers. Or perhaps they were awed by her Slavic accent. The plate nearest her has the little 2/3 sized hot dogs on it. It was a sensational day with the kids around all the time.

Part of the “Fast Food Alchemy” crew. Cindy Newman, who is Burpee’s and The Cook’s Garden’s Planning Assistant, is helping to grill the zucchini-based hamburgers (using ‘Limelight’ and ‘Camouflage’) and Linda Cassidy, who is the Innkeeper of Fordhook Farm, is actually grilling. Miryana Navarro-Monzo is deep frying the golden hush puppies that were perhaps the greatest crowd pleaser (Take that, Red Lobster!). One of our student interns named Hanne is helping. This is the deepest part of the Verandah. Behind them is the study where our founder, W. Atlee Burpee, wrote the catalogues from 1888, when he moved there, to 1917, when he passed away. He loved horses, hence the bronze horse sculpture in the far window to the left, our homage to him.

No photo blog is complete, in my view, without a confession or disclaimer. My high school friend and later the managing editor of Crop Science, among other scientific journals, is Nicholas H. Rhodehamel . He is shy so he’s been reluctant to help me overtly with the scientific types of blogs we have published here at Heronswood Voice. But nothing lasts forever, so he has agreed to be revealed. “H.C. Heg” was his idea. Heg was a Norwegian immigrant who joined the Union Army and distinguished himself in the Civil War, fatally, and thus earned a bronze statue in a park in Madison, Wisconsin, where Nick lived when he studied virology and, later, edited scientific journals.

“Frederick Dobbs” was my idea. Humphrey Bogart’s greatest role, perhaps, after The Maltese Falcon’, was as “Dobbsie” in Treasure of the Sierra Madre. Several people have written in wondering if this was a pseudonym. They are correct: here Fred C. Dobbs.

“Hugh Glass” was also my idea, but Nick introduced me to the novel years ago. ‘Lord Grizzly’ is based on the story of the actual Hugh Glass, a bit like ‘Moby Dick’ is based on the voyages of the whaling ship, ‘The Essex’. It is, without a doubt, one of the finest novels that an American has produced.

Both of us wish to apologize for creating the illusion that there were these three guest bloggers. Nick just didn’t want his name in the blogosphere. Thank God there are some people left who feel this way. However, he loves to write and is very good at it, particularly in making science understandable yet still interesting. My favorites are “Frederick Dobbs On the Sub Zero Garden” and “All That Shimmers Is Not Silk: H.C.Heg On the Gypsy Moth”. Nick prefers “Powerline : Fredrick Dobbs On Photosynthesis” , one of our least-read blogs. Which just shows to go you.

Our best blog—most read—under a pseudonym was “Batman: H.C. Heg On Bats” which I personally insisted he write—the only time I have done so. As usual, and in strict accordance with Murphy’s Law, it was the first blog he has written that has had a mistake in it. We have all made big mistakes, but Nick was embarrassed, if not mortified. He made up for his mistake in the comments section. Except for the mistake, it is an excellent blog, but he didn’t really want to write it, unlike all the others that were all his ideas.

Now he will write as Nick Rhodehamel , which some loyal readers will recall he used once a long time ago to write a letter to me about hardiness zones. Here he is enjoying late morning coffee after flying to Philadelphia the night before from Los Angeles, near his home in Santa Barbara.

That’s the opposite side of the Verandah from the study. The oldest part of the house is the original kitchen which is behind Nick. To the far left, or on his right, a small section of the ice house can be seen. Nick is sitting exactly where Martha Stewart was when I asked her to guess about the ingredients of a ceviche Miryana made 14 years ago.

Before I put up a post about Media Day for 2011, our upcoming 135th year in business, I’d like to introduce you to the past President of W. Atlee Burpee & Co. before me, and the current President after me. On the left (my right) is William “Bill” MacDowell and to the right is Christos “Chris” Romas.

Bill was the General Foods executive who led Burpee—masterfully—after David Burpee retired in 1971 after a 56 year career as President. Huge shoes to fill and Bill did fill them and then some. He brought many innovative marketing ideas to Burpee and established a truly professional management structure that we still have and use today.

Chris has been with Burpee for nearly 20 years and had 17 under his belt when I made him President in 2008. He’s the best all-around executive I’ve ever worked with, and I’ve worked all over the world.

I’m the guy who forgot to unbutton his suit jacket before wrapping his arms around his two friends’ shoulders.

The famous Burpee Seed House has an illustrious history. Built in 1895, it is just about the only true “seed house” left in the region and one of perhaps a dozen left in the world. It was this structure that the United States federal government wanted to grant landmark status, but the Burpee family was not interested. Mrs. Burpee had recently been widowed and understandably didn’t want the hassle.

There is a complete but windowless third floor where the large seeded crops, hauled up in large bins by pulley, were dropped down various shutes to “separate out” by weight (blow air across the shaft and the lighter, less viable seed separates from the heavier higher quality seed), and by size and shape by using screens with holes for various size and shapes. This results in a uniformity of the “seed stock” that, like weight, also indicates the seeds’ quality. The weight test doesn’t always catch the very small or misshaped seeds.

However, the main feature of this barn-like structure is the number of large windows, which a barn never has. Barns are for storage, or the temporary holding of livestock, such as at night. Windows admit light, which decays farm produce and is of no use to animals at night. On the contrary, moonlight and the lightening from thunderstorms can scare them. So—no windows in barns. In fact, most visitors think this is an old school house.

But this is a seed house, where seed was not only graded, but also cleaned and separated by harvest date and location of plot in the seed production fields—all 700 acres of them in the 1890s to the1940s, when Burpee shifted much of its production to the west coast. Multiply these tasks by about 1,000 seed crop species and you have quite a complex operation at seed harvest time, which is usually midsummer to late fall.

So, what happens also at that time of year? Light levels decline and day lengths shorten. And who gets to do “sit down” jobs on a farm? Who has first dibs? That’s right: the oldest or most senior employees. And, thirdly, what do you never carry into a building where the air is full of dry leaf and stem dust and the tables and benches are covered with dry natural debris? A lantern or flame of any kind.

Hence, I present to you a seed house. The many windows on all four sides captured light during the waning months of shortening days and long angular sunlight periods. The seed cleaners could work from sun up to sun down. Windows also provided a quick dry down if we had seed from a relatively wet harvest, which happens from time to time. Just open a couple on both sides and you had an instant dry zone. Like newborns, a dry seed is a happy seed.

And, as I said , the windows were perfect for the more senior members of the four crew to see, even with their glasses on, as they did the laborious, close-up evaluating and sorting of lesser and greater quality seeds.

The narrow chimney up the right side next to the sugar maple was for a pot-bellied stove used during the winter in order for the interior temperature to remain within a stable range in order to keep the seed viable. Since the cleaning was done by then, and the dormant (“sleeping”) seed was stored in bags or heavy metal drums, there was no danger of fire as during the harvest season. The stove was also within warming distance of a small desk where a couple of clerks would continue paperwork, entering information about test results and generally keeping an eye on things.

The twin doors were where the wagons entered with the field-gathered seed, which was still dirty, just not yet dusty. Most, but not all, species had been de-hulled in the outdoors.The mules pulled the wagons all the way through, like a “drive-through”. There is the exact same set of doors (and windows) on the back side. The small door off Mr. MacDowell’s shoulder is the only sign that this is the front of the seed house.

The belfry used to signal beginning and end of work, four times a day. The slate housing the belfry is the same “blue slate” that covered the entire roof until it became so costly to maintain that I replaced it with thin metal that has a nice red coat. The roof color actually matches the red of the shutters during the rest of the day, but this is about 2pm on a very clear day.

We shall be open for 2011 with public events at Fordhook Farm during the late spring through early fall. As I have said before, we needed a bit of a rest for 2010, as well as time to dream up some truly interesting events for 2011.

I’ll post about the rest of Media Days soon.

In summer as children, we were allowed to stay out until dusk. In our northern part of the Central Time Zone, even on its eastern edge, dusk came late. I remember most the mosquitoes, fireflies, and bats. Some nights I would watch the bats as darkness fell. First there would be only one, then two, and by the time it became truly dark, there would be half a dozen or more swooping above us at what seemed a discreet distance. But who knew if they were even aware of us?

I would try to follow one with my eyes to judge its circuit. That was nearly impossible though because they were so quick, and their flight would take them through trees where I would lose sight of my mark for a second; then I couldn’t tell if it was my bat or another one I was watching. I imagined that the bats operated in little groups that patrolled a defined area with maybe six bats per cell. I imagined these cells occurring contiguously all over the county and then all over the state and ultimately all over the country; I figured there would be hundreds and thousands and millions of bats. Thinking about that, I got the same feeling as when I stared at the stars and tried to infer infinity.

In those days, bats were regarded as vermin that lived in attics, carried rabies, and were slightly creepy and, at best, of little or no use. Now as then, there are fears and misconceptions about bats.

Some of these are silly. That bats are attracted to human hair is one of those; or that they’ll get stuck in hair while hunting insects. Try throwing a stick into the air where bats are hunting overhead; they’ll immediately scatter, just as minnow do when a pebble is dropped into a pond. All the swooping and acrobatics that bats exhibit involve locating and catching insects in the dark on the wing; bats certainly can distinguish humans—and their sticks—from prey.

Some are accepted as figures of speech: “blind as a bat”. But bats are not blind. Some fruit bats have excellent night vision, which they use to find the flowers and fruits they pollinate and eat. In the dark, though, bats also “see” by echolocation. Bats emit a series of short, high-pitched sounds that bounce off objects and surfaces, creating an echo that the bat perceives. It’s an acutely sensitive system that allows bats to discriminate the size, shape, direction, distance, and motion of an object (insect, human, or otherwise) and that may have applications for blind people.

Some are a mixture of fancy and fact. Bats don’t attack people, but they can carry disease. They are highly mobile creatures that range far and wide in small groups and roost in large communal colonies, which make them good hosts for pathogens and excellent potential transmitters of disease.  However, the threat to humans in North America is minimal.

Rabies is the predominant disease concern. Rabies has been recognized for at least 4000 years and is typically transmitted in saliva from the bite of an infected animal. It’s a viral disease of warm-blooded animals (including humans) that affects the central nervous system. It’s most often seen in dogs, cats, raccoons, skunks, foxes, bats, and coyotes. The World Health Organization estimates that 55,000 people die from rabies each year, mostly from contact with rabid dogs, but in North America, pet and livestock vaccination programs have all but eliminated human rabies. An average of two people per year died from rabies transmitted by bats in North America between 1995 through 2009.

Among other things we know about bats is that they may look like winged rats, but they’re not rodents. They are far more closely related to humans than they are to rodents. Worldwide, there are as many as 1100 species of bats. Most (70%) eat insects; most of the rest eat fruit. There are three species of “vampire” (carnivorous)  bats that live in Central and South America (their teeth are not like hypodermic needles, though; they lap rather than suck blood).

Bats come in a variety of sizes. The smallest is the Kitti’s Hog-Nosed bat (Craseonycteris thonglongyai), also known as the bumblebee bat. It’s endangered, insectivorous, and lives in Southeast Asia. It’s about 1.25 inches long and is the world’s smallest mammal. The largest bat is the rare and endangered Giant Golden-Crowned Flying-Fox (Acerodon jubatus), a fruit bat that weighs nearly 3 pounds and has a wing span of almost 5 feet. It lives in the Philippines.

Bats are the single true flying mammal, and some are prodigious flyers. The hoary bat (Lasiurus cinereus) commonly occurs throughout North and South America. Like some other bats, it is migratory and will migrate from Canada to the southern USA; it is known also to have flown from North America to Hawaii (about 3000 miles). It is Hawaii’s only indigenous land mammal and is endangered there. It is predatory and prefers moths.

Migratory bats are the exception in the temperate North America. Most of our bats hibernate in caves (or mines) during winter; they roost in trees or buildings during summer.

Bats are not vermin. They play a significant ecological role. In desert and tropical climates, bats are important pollinators. Many tropical plants (mangoes, bananas, and guavas) are dependent on bats for pollination; some are entirely dependent on bats for pollination and seed distribution. In tropical rainforests, almost all seeds scattered in cleared areas are dropped by bats. In North America, bats are the primary predator of night-flying insects. A single bat can eat as many as 1000 mosquitoes in an hour. Bats also feed on beetles, leafhoppers, and moths, many of which feed on—and destroy—important food crops.

An abundance of bats seems to be an indicator of a well functioning ecosystem, and there is evidence that where bat populations have been disrupted, insect pest populations have risen. Worldwide, bats are endangered. Of the 45 species that inhabit the USA, six are endangered.

In North America, one of the main threats to bats is habitat loss resulting from urbanization, surface mining, municipal lake and reservoir construction (which flood roosting caves), and casual cave exploration (spelunking). Pesticides and wind farms positioned in their migratory pathways also strain bat populations. Another threat that seems to have the potential of decimating bat populations is White-Nose Syndrome. Apparently diseased bats with white muzzles were observed in a cave near Albany, NY, in 2006; dead bats were observed also. This syndrome seems to affect hibernating bats, and since it was first identified, sick, dying, and dead bats have been found in and around caves from New Hampshire to Tennessee. As many as 1 million bats have died. Federal and state laboratories are actively studying the syndrome. A newly discovered fungus (Geomyces destructans) that grows under cold conditions and infects bat skin may be associated, but the cause of the bat deaths is unknown. For more information see http://www.fws.gov/WhiteNoseSyndrome/index.html; verified 1 Aug. 2010.

Bat houses are a way of compensating for bat habitat loss. There are 10 North American species that nest in bat houses. So if you’re interested in supporting bat populations, there are lots of resources for bat houses on the internet, from commercially constructed ones to simple plans and information. A bat colony in your backyard will have the added benefits of reducing the number of insects in your yard and discouraging bats from roosting in your attic, where they don’t really want to live anyway.

Today, greener-than-thou gardeners crusade for heirloom seeds, while unjustly damming hybrids.  Increasingly, their anti-science credo has hardened into a Luddite fundamentalism, resulting in confusion among the public between hybrids and genetically modified organisms, or GMOs.  Clearly, the hybrid versus heirloom imbroglio is about more than the quest for the biggest, most delicious tomato.

As a third-generation seedsman, I can lend balance to this lopsided debate.  My company, W. Atlee Burpee, has provided American gardeners with heirloom seeds since 1876 and introduced hybrid seeds to American home gardens in 1934.  Since Burpee’s hybrid and heirloom sales are roughly 50-50, I’m one hundred percent in favor of both heirlooms and hybrids.

Starting in the late 1940s, hybrid seed—one of mankind’s greatest achievements—transformed agriculture. The “Green Revolution”, the adoption of hybrids by developing nations, boosted wheat, rice and corn harvests—multiplying yields up to tenfold.  Hybrids saved millions from famine, dramatically lowered food prices, and helped turn countries dependent on food imports into net exporters.  On the home front, hybrid vegetables transformed backyard gardening from a chore into a pleasure abounding with the proverbial bushels of zucchinis and tomatoes.

Many of today’s heirlooms were once market varieties prior to the advent of the supermarket; others were regional, from either families or communities such as the Amish.  Heirloom devotees are justly smitten with their storybook heritage, relative rarity and unusual flavor.

But when it comes to garden performance, heirlooms prove no match for hybrids.  The cachet-free, hard-working hybrids remain “old faithfuls” for the majority of American gardeners.  Indeed, in blind taste tests, many home garden hybrids triumph over heirlooms.

What heirlooms may lack in productivity and hardiness, they make up in mystique.  True believers overlook their decreased output, lower disease resistance, and—unless they buy heirlooms each year—laborious seed-saving chores.  But they go astray when their passion for heirlooms blinds them to the virtues of hybrids.

Increasingly, NGOs and activists are encouraging third-world farmers, in Haiti and elsewhere, to grow heirlooms in lieu of hybrids.  By so doing, they are putting their sophisticated personal tastes and aesthetics before the life and death needs of the farmers and their communities—people for whom a poor harvest can be a death sentence.  This is nouveau imperialism at its most pernicious.  “Let them eat heirlooms.”

Yet hybrids have as much history behind them as heirlooms.  Farmers and native peoples have been refining and improving seed stock for millennia, selecting the best plants and jettisoning the clunkers.  Moreover, due to natural cross-pollination and mutations caused by solar radiation, the genetic makeup of the world’s plants is ever changing.  Evolution never sleeps.

Without human intervention beginning ten thousand or so years ago, the tomatoes, peppers and other produce we enjoy today would be inedible, even toxic.  For example, tech-savvy Native Americans progressively wrought extraordinary improvements in corn and potatoes—now global staples.  Gregor Mendel’s discovery of genetics in 1866 enabled humanity to fulfill these ancestral struggles to develop ever greater food quality and supply.  In short, hybrids are improved heirlooms.

In contrast to sterile GMO laboratories, hybrid seed production, created by hand in the outdoors, is about as high-tech as knitting. Hybrid research is highly creative, yet little different from what nature does on its own, combining and recombining plants’ genes.  Spurred by Mendel’s work, natural processes are accelerated in both test gardens and winter greenhouses.  Breeders work within the plant’s genetic system—not outside it.  Plus, hybridizers reproduce their plants sexually, while GMO scientists insert DNA into clones.  To conflate hybrids with GMOs, as many do, is like mistaking an abacus for a supercomputer. 

As for environmental impact, hardy and disease-resistant hybrids require fewer chemical inputs, less water and smaller space.  Since they are higher yielding, hybrids reduce habitat destruction in the third world.  You can achieve the same harvest on a quarter as much land.

Finally, contrary to public opinion, genetic diversity is actually enhanced by hybridization.  Plant breeders widen available genes by both crossing with wild species and coaxing forth traits already present in domesticated cultivars.  Ironically, while expressing unique characteristics, heirlooms, being inbreds, possess narrower gene pools.  Therefore, public institutions and private companies, including Burpee, preserve them in seed vaults.  By nature, heirlooms exist at a genetic dead end.  You can see similar situations in wild animals, livestock and pets.  Nevertheless, some heirloom plants possess great virtues such as novel colors and flavors.  We don’t have to lose our heirloom past in order to claim our hybrid future.

It’s time for gardeners to stop slinging mulch and return to the pleasures and rewards of gardening.  There’s plenty of room in the vegetable patch for both heirlooms and hybrids.

This post appeared as an op/ed piece in the Sunday, July 18 edition of the Des Moines Register.

So close to the sun, canted to receive the longest days. So little cloud cover—or even precipitation in the air. Crops, including tests here at Fordhook Farm, are slowly drying out: roots, trunks, stems, branches, leaves. Petals wave in slow-motion. No wind; so all the desiccation comes from high temperatures and dry air. Stillness is the only blessing the past week and the next few days. Were there wind, some of the newly planted species and cultivars might burn to death.

What to do?

Soak the smaller trees and shrubs, especially the newly planted (one year or less), as early in the morning as possible. Place the hose spout at the base of the tree or large shrub and let a medium flow soak the ground for an hour, or two if it’s a larger or newer transplanted tree.

Turn on the drip system or soaker hoses first thing and let them soak for up to an hour, depending on the genus. Watery plants—more water needed. Fruity plants or vegetables—more still. Do this everywhere every few days. If anything, go longer than shorter in time, especially in the peak of the heat wave.

Do not water mid-day—the plants have already been stressed for seven hours, and, most important, much of the water will evaporate. If that’s the only time you can do it, water even longer periods at a time than in the morning routine.

Do not spray foliage. The leaves have already shut down to conserve water inside them, so your water will simply evaporate on the leaf and, worse, fall off and evaporate on the warm ground. It feels good and makes you think it’s refreshing the plants, but it’s doing absolutely no good. Don’t do it. The roots are all that matter, especially at this time.

Unless you’re in Maine, Canada or the upper Pacific Northwest, your supplemental fertilizing time has passed. All vascular plants want now is water—roots are “ground zero” for their nutrients and air supply.

Finally, please mind that full sun gardens need more water than heavily shaded ones. But check your shaded herbaceous plants for signs of tree root water “theft”. You cannot always tell, since it changes as shrubs and trees grow. When you find noticeable flagging of stems or leaves, water heavily, as above. Since the soil is cooler from the shade, it won’t have to be watered as frequently or as much, as the full sun soil.

Repeat, as needed, or continue to more trouble spots, next morning or the morning after.

So, what to do midday, after weed patrol? FLICKS!

You want vampire movies? I give you them. ‘Near Dark’ started this last two decade-long update and extension of the “intelligent” fang-fest. And the actors! Lance Hendrickson, Bill Paxton, the incredible Jeanette Goldstein, Adrian Pasdar, Jenny Lee, along with all sorts of retread 70s actors as well as up and comers like Theresa Randle. And the odd Joshua Miller. A rollicking story, witty script and as dark a score as the southwestern night could conjure up. Great? No. Gory? Yes. Weird? You bet. Fun? Absolutely.

Then came, from the masterful John Carpenter, Vampire$. This took ‘Near Dark’ up several levels. Great action, gore, historical sweep and weirdness. But the humor and ensemble casting is very satisfying, and there’s even a bit of comedy. And few are better at music and editing than John Carpenter. Actors include Maxmillian Schell, John Woods, Sheryl Lee, Daniel Baldwin and the under-rated Thomas Ian Griffith as the “key” vampire, with a tribe of very grungy ghouls. Supporting players include Julia McFerrin as well as Tim Guinee and Mark Boone Junior as back-up for Woods’ leader of the sucker-hunters. All location shots are in New Mexico, and use student actors from Santa Fe. For the bit parts, so to speak.

Out in the big, cool box theaters, don’t miss ‘A-Team’ as well as ‘The Last Airbender’. One flick in the last century and the other moving fast into the future. It’s always good to see Liam Neeson, even in a popcorn-eater. The plot is compelling, action super energetic and camera work satisfying. As for ‘Airbender’, what’s not to like? The four elements at war! Weaponized magically by martial artists, young and old! Spectacular flick! Plus, it was filmed in southeast Pennsylvania, and we root for our own. At least some of us do.

The media-driven “race scandal” regarding the casting? Since the comics on which the series is based are Asian, and all the characters in Asian comics look like “hybrids” of Asian and non-Asian—as anyone can see—the director casted “hybrid” looking kids. There is no scandal. Unless being faithful to the source material is a scandal, but that would be news to me. It seems there are media scolds everywhere you turn these days, trying to “correct” everything politically, and failing miserably to do so. This is due to ignorance, carelessness or both. Go see ‘The Last Airbender’ it’s a great and glorious flick.

As for the Twilight series, the music is the part I enjoyed. Carter Burwell’s score, in the last one, was even better. But Howard Shore is very memorable.

I have to give the writers credit for dealing with the desire for immortality in a new way, if only stylistically. But there’s also a return to the “real” romance—the Christian subtext that is linked here and there, like a bit of code. Faust as a young girl? It will be interesting to see where the series goes.

For a fantasy of a Biblical theme, check out ‘Book of Eli’. Now there is a film with character. These two Iranian and African American twin brother directors bolted out of the blue with ‘From Hell’—a spectacularly good Ripper retelling—and this is their first new film in almost ten years. Johnny Depp, a breathtaking Heather Graham and Ian Holm played there, while Denzel Washington, Mila Kunis and Gary Oldman fill the ranks here, with moving performances by Ray Stevenson and Jennifer Beals.

At the outset, a spear slowly flashes across the screen—Iliad-like—and you know you’re in mythic space and time. Hercules-Appollo-Eli has quite a task and journey ahead. Washington’s great, and the supporting cast are superb. A genuine surprise ending makes this a keeper.