Archive for the 'hardscaping' category
more garden porn
6:14 pm5/8/06
None of the tulips coming up in my garden are mine. I mean, I took over the plot mid-summer last year, and, while I had the best of intentions as for planting bulbs, the garden itself was a jungle when I took it over, and a mudpit when I got finioshed with it last fall, and I still hadn’t quite worked out the lay-out to my satisfaction. So it would have been a headache to deal with bulbs I’d planted in random spots coming up everywhere in the spring, when I wanted to get the hardscaping sorted.
So the ones popping up now are all little surprises. Colorwise, they’re not my favorites–I prefer something a little more delicate, but I’ll take ‘em anyway. Here’s a little garden porn for a cloudy Monday…
Well, things got a little wet these last couple of days, but not nearly wet enough. At least not here in Boston. I’m not having much luck growing my grass, as much as I have been sending those super gamma rays into the earth trying to get it going.
Here’s another view of the garden taken recently, looking southeast:
You know, all you need is a good, steady, sustained shower, over night, even, and you see everything POP. There’s nothing like rain. I mean, I get over there and water it, but it’s not like a good rain.
4/26/06
The Garden Gate
10:21 am
One of the interesting challenges of public gardening, particulalry in a high-traffic multi-use urban environment like the Fenway, is security. You probably don’t think about this when you’re walking through the gardens, but it’s definitely an issue for the gardeners.
Vandalism is a concern for anyone who gardens in the city. In the Fenway you can count on your garden being trashed at least once a summer. Which is unfortunate. It may be an eternal truth that every positive notion, urge, or action has its equal and opposite. It seems so, at least. Whatever constructive urges we humans have are at least matched, if not surpassed by the urge we have to destroy things.
I don’t think there’s much to be done about it, to tell you thed truth, because, like it or not, that destructive urge is fundamental to our progress as a species. But the problem is, the urge to destroy is not always married to that urge to rebuild. Sometimes it’s just the urge to destroy, period. And it’s up to someone else to rebuild.
Lucky for everyone, gardeners are used to rearranging, shaking things up and rising to the challenges nature and man throw in their path. That’s such a basic part of what gardening is, that wehen your garden gets trashed, you stand around stunned, scratching your head for a while, and then get back down to work.
Which is not to say that anyone wants to have their garden trashed. But it happens. It’s hard to understand in a rational way. But I suspect those responsible are generally under the influence of something–in the Fens it could be anything from crack to crystal. Not that that makes it less wrong, but somehow it’s more understandable.
Because razorwire is forbidden, and the fences are usually pretty easy to hop, most gardeners try to safeguard the fruits of their labor by planting thorny climbing plants along their fences. I’m off to pick up a couple of climbing rose bushes later this afternoon, which will be the extent of my security measures. The trick is not to make it look like you’re barricading yourself in. You want a natural barrier that whispers: “look, but don’t touch,” rather than screams: “Stay the hell out!”
4/22/06
