The Providential Gardener

The Underground ~ A Wealth of Info for and about Landscape Professionals

Last year at the New England Grows! Conference and Expo in Boston, I came upon The Underground, an interesting group of landscape and nursery professionals who work mostly in the Boston/SE Mass area. I joined so I could follow their activities and benefit from the useful gardening information shared there.

Their current discussion board especially caught my eye: Dog friendly gardens ~ Plants to avoid, plants dogs like....

How lucky the dog whose owner muses, "I was wondering if anyone had any thoughts on plants, design ideas etc that a dog would enjoy...." ! It reminds me of our now deceased goof-ball dog, who was of such indeterminate origin that I had to invent a breed just for her: Socks, the one and only Ersttweiler. She looked and sounded like a sweet wookiee, as you can kind of tell from this 1990 pre-digital photo I just scanned. The mold has been broken, folks.

She loved everything about the outdoors, so she was easy to please. I remember leaving her on one side of the house while I worked in the garden on the other side. I walked over to check her without fully looking around the corner, and there she was, lounging about and smiling that serene doggie smile at me. But when I went to check again and really looked behind her, she'd dug up most of the garden around her. Such fun! You can have your Rottweilers ~ I'd take that Ersttweiler any day!

Well, what would dogs like in a garden besides holes of their own making? Suggestions on the list range from nice thick lawns to roll around on for backscratching; large hostas to "dig a cool cave under...while waiting for the FedEx delivery;" Verbena bonariensis, which another Undergrounder's dogs chew up...

Maybe you're thinking of adding water features to your garden this year, but if you have a dog to please, be sure to include places to burrow holes and vantage points for observing the world :

On really hot days, dogs love to dig in the bat cave (at my house it is an overgrown taxus) that seems to be immune to the effects of the dog (only one in particular) that loves to burrow under it. I hide that area from sight with some tough perennials like daylilies and self sowing rudbeckia etc. that she can't hurt too much - which minimizes the "gardening conflicts"!

Dogs also love to be able to see out and survey their world - so when it is cooler there is a little hill that they all have liked sitting/lying on so that they can see the street, back door, most of the driveway and keep an eye on their little slice of the planet.

Of course, many dogs will like your water features also. Any serious dog will surely think your new pond will go great with the holes. Hey, maybe you can get your dog to dig the pond. Synergy!

OK, back from this imaginary romp in the yard to return to The Underground. Another recent discussion is about a trellis for espalier and what trees could be trained to the trellis. There are job listings and professional meeting announcements. If you are a professional landscape architect, you'll want to check out The Underground, join it (which is free), and be listed on this site. If you are a consumer of landscaping services, you'll want to check out The Underground's Consumer Articles, such as How to Hire A Landscape Professional.

The landscape professionals I quote above are:

• Kristen, of AquaTerra Designs in Dorchester, MA (the poser of the question)
• Pamela Hart, of Pamela Hart Landscape Services
• Ellen Sousa of THB Farm, a central Massachusetts horse farm
• Catherine Rooney of DesignerOfGreens in Ashland, MA

Rhode Island landscape architects should note that The Underground lists its professional members at Find a Landscape Professional. Only 9 Rhode Islanders are listed, but I'm sure we have quite a few more than that, even if this is the smallest state in the Union. The listing notes who is a member of the Northeast Organic Gardening Association (NOFA). RI doesn't have its own NOFA chapter, but several Rhode Islanders participate in the Massachusetts and Connecticut groups.

Oh, yes, one more thing: The Underground organizes several meetings each year. The next one is:

Landscape Contractor and Designer Relations
Panel Discussion
Saturday, January 26, 2008 1:00-4:00
Elm Bank, Wellesley, MA
Registration is $20 in advance, or $25 at the door.

The meeting has been listed in What Grows On in Rhode Island, which can alert you to all sorts of cool, green things to do.

 

Garden/Landscape Masters & Professionals

Although garden and landscape work is winding down in mid-October [although it's hard to keep that in mind when the temperature hits 76 degrees, as it did today], the Master Gardeners and RINLA professionals are still busy.

URI Master Gardeners are looking forward to their annual meeting in November, and they are still answering the URI Master Gardener Hotline for a few more weeks. Call them if you are having garden problems Monday through Thursday, 9:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m., at 1-800-448-1011 (this only works in Rhode Island). They are also working on the Poinsettia Sale on Saturday, December 1 from 9:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. at URI East Farm on Route 108, one mile south of the intersection of Route 138.

But most of all, I'd like to recommend you take the Master Gardener course yourself. Registration is open for this February-April, 16-week course that trains people to be volunteers who help Rhode Islanders learn about sustainable gardening practices. Find out more about the program on the MG About Us page, and consider taking the course ~ if not this year, then in a year or two. It took me a few years to work this into my schedule, but I succeeded this year and have completed more than the required 50 hours of volunteer work to earn the official recognition of Master Gardener. Another Rhode Island blogger, Caroline Brown, was in the class of 2006 and wrote about her experiences on Earth Friendly Gardening. Hope you join us one day!

Professional Gardeners include members of Rhode Island Nursery and Landscape Association (RINLA) , a trade organization that takes the industry far beyond the mow, blow, and go guys to provide "education, research support, legislative representation, certification, and promotion of the value of green industry goods and services to the public."

If you hire people to tend your lawn, gardens, or landscape, be sure to read the RINLA links page. They  explain how to choose a garden center, horticulturist, landscape contractor or designer, lawn service, stone mason, or arborist. RINLA runs a horticulturist certification program. If you are going to pay good money for your landscape, you owe it to yourself to know what professional landscape expertise would look like.

North Main Street Project: An Example of Residents Shaping Their Neighborhood

One reason for haphazard, ugly, people-unfriendly, and/or environmentally unsound development is the absence of neighborhood residents in town and city planning processes. Nobody thinks about what it's going to be like to LIVE near the results of development or redevelopment. Some people in Providence, however, are setting an example of constructive and proactive resident involvement in what their own neighborhood could be.

The Providential Gardener will be following their activities as they develop plans and influence changes on the part of North Main Street in Providence that stretches from Branch Avenue/Cypress Street (at the entry of North Burial Ground) to the Pawtucket city line. For those of you not in the immediate neighborhood, this section of North Main Street goes past:

• North Burial Ground, dating from 1700
• the Dexter House (built in 1755) at Rochambeau Avenue,
• "where the Auditorium used to be" (I understand Rocky Marciano's fights were held there, among many other events, but it's now a parking lot for The Miriam Hospital),
• the Armory, headquarters of the RI National Guard 103rd Field Artillery Regiment, and
• the derelict Sears Roebuck building on North Main.

The task is daunting. North Burial Ground isn't in the best of shape, but it could be another Mount Auburn Cemetery (see an earlier story), and several buildings are long abandoned, making for a depressing sight. It's worth your life to cross the street, and this commercial strip isn't well integrated into the neighboring residential areas. You can't walk from nearby homes to banks, dry cleaners, or a grocery store, for instance, because there aren't any. [There's a drug store, though, and a couple of blocks away, a major chain is building another big drug store. What does this mean? Is there only money in serving sick people? Are we all sick yet?]

So what are North Main Street's neighbors doing about this?  What's been done so far? Click on the picture in this post to enlarge it so you can read it for details. In sum:

• Organized a group of partners (click on the picture above for the list)
• Set goals, for instance,
  
  • New jobs for Providence residents [near the neighborhood]
  • More homes and people on North Main
  • Model Smart Growth & green buildings
  • New business start-ups
  • Destination attractions: shopping, entertainment, restaurants, park
  • Safe pedestrian routes and paths
  • Efficient, low-emission transit options
• Identified a process:
  • Define the problem
  • Find out what the neighbors want
  • Figure out how to make happen what folks want
• Align with larger planning processes such as The Providence Tomorrow Initiative's series of charrettes, part of the new Providence Comprehensive Plan. More background on the development of the North Main Street Project are on the Summit Neighborhood Association (SNA) blog. The SNA has a meeting on Monday, September 17, to prepare for the neighborhood charrettes being held the week of September 24 for the Blackstone, Mount Hope, and Summit neighborhoods in the northeastern section of Providence. 

Stay tuned! And send news of others who are making innovative plans for improving their neighborhoods. For instance, here's another neighborhood's plans: a March 2007 story about Washington Park/South Elmwood in Providence.

2007 Master Gardener Tour Photos

Monday, July 16, 2007 ~ As you could tell from the Providential Gardener Calendar, this was a busy weekend just past. I had committed to the Master Gardener Tour a few months ago, so I spent both Saturday and Sunday driving from East Providence to North Smithfield, finally ending up in Matunuck Sunday afternoon. I did my best to see all the gardens. However, I only made about 17 of them, which is quite a lot. I know I missed some great gardens ~ didn't get to Newport County at all. And I didn't get to talk and visit with folks as much as I might have liked, but this was the first Master Gardner Tour I have taken, and I wanted to see as many of the sights and experience the spaces created by the garden-artists who so kindly opened their landscapes to hundreds of garden lovers. It was so hard to leave the well-tended gardens when they were full of inviting places to sit and relax! Sensible people visit maybe 5 gardens a day, and they do take time to sit and enjoy.

Anyway, I have more than 150 photos, not all of which I can put on this blog. I'm sending most of them to the Master Gardeners, and I will be glad to send all I have to the garden owners. It takes a while to caption all the photos, so the 2007 Master Gardener Tour Photo Album only has Saturday's photos today. The rest will be up in the next day or two.

P.S.: Tuesday: The Sunday photos are now in the 2007 Master Gardener Tour Photo Album. Still working on captions...

Curb Appeal in a Buyer's Market

Sunday's Providence Journal (June 17, 2007) featured a story by Christine Dunn on how fine landscaping can impress potential buyers and move them to make (higher) offers (Projo Homes, G1). Jacqueline Murphy of Jacqueline Murphy Design [can't find a website for this one, but some contact info is on the RINLA site], and Alexandra Knott, owner of East Side Eden, shared several ideas for making your home's exterior more interesting, which you might want to try even if you are not selling your home this year. It takes a while for plantings to mature, and smaller shrubs and trees, for instance, are much less expensive.

It helps to have good advice, and seeking out experienced horticulturists and landscape professionals is well worth it. Jacqueline Murphy Design and East Side Eden are in Providence and Pawtucket respectively and have clients around the state. You can also check for skilled landscape professionals in the membership list of the Rhode Island Nursery and Landscape Association [RINLA].

Landscape Institute and Other Arnold Arboretum Programs

Word comes today from Sanne Kure-Jensen, a landscape designer and consultant in Portsmouth, of the summer landscape design courses being offered by Arnold Arboretum beginning in July. The Landscape Institute, which is appropriately located on Garden Street in Cambridge and not at Arnold Arboretum itself, offers certificate programs, and because it is only about an hour away from Providence, adventurous Rhode Islanders may want to investigate their course offerings and take some courses or earn a certificate.

Arnold Arboretum, located in Boston's Roslindale, is well worth exploring. They also have an adult education program, a "Field studies for children" program, and family activities.

This post is about Arnold Arboretum, but several Rhode Island organizations offer similar programs as well. Look through the long list of organizations in the Providential Gardener's side bar and the list of Events links for Rhode Island groups.  Blithewold in Bristol, for instance, offers an extensive range of similar activities. 

Thanks, Sanne, for this info! The Providential Gardener welcomes all news and updates about what's "growing on" in and near Rhode Island. Any Rhode Island groups offering similar activities ~ add my email to your distribution list!

Something Old, Something Green

Sustainability was a major theme at the 22nd Annual Rhode Island Statewide Historic Preservation Conference, held in Pawtucket on Saturday, April 14, 2007. The session on Sustainable Historic Landscapes especially interested the Providential Gardener. What a privilege it must be to work on Boston's Emerald Necklace, Westerly's Wilcox Park, and a village walkway in Guilford, CT.  Landscape architects with such assignments described recent plans and developments for these public spaces, which present many challenges that taxpayers and visitors don't usually consider.

Everyone stressed Maintenance. After all, that is the old-fashioned word that determines Sustainability. If a landscape has plants that will both thrive without much human intervention and also behave themselves, it is much easier and significantly less expensive and time consuming to keep things looking nice and neat. By working with the maintenance staff before and during a project, landscape designers learn what can realistically be expected, given the actual maintenance budget, from the people who have the ongoing care of their garden visions.

Issues include:

Not too Late for Professionals to Check out New England Grows!

Today the time flew by as I managed to see about one fifth of the exhibitors at New England Grows! [The exclamation point is part of the convention name, but I suppose it could also function as punctuation for the sentence.] This is a convention and expo for professionals in landscape gardening, nurseries, arborists, etc. ~ a trade show for the green industry, with training sessions for updating certifications, continuing education credits, and business development.

There's a lot of big, heavy, clean and shiny machinery in there for expediting all sorts of gardening and agricultural projects; any number of plant and seed wholesalers and nurseries; suppliers of pottery, mulch, nutrients, etc., we'll all see this spring in our local garden centers; and a number of associations and organizations I will write about in the next couple of days. If you have a professional interest in the green industry and can get to Boston Wednesday or Thursday, check out the New England Grows! exhibitors and the program, get on the train, and hightail it to South Station. A shuttle runs from South Station to the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center, but I walked it this morning ~ getting used to this bitter cold weather ~ it's 6 or 7 blocks, more or less. Note that if something interests you and you cannot get to Boston, you can buy recordings of programs, but as of tonight the 2007 sessions are not yet listed.

Check the Condensed Events listings regularly. I gathered a lot of information at the Expo about upcoming meetings, and I am adding to the events listings almost every day.

Creating Sustainable Landscapes & Healthy Communities

Going to conferences might be a full-time job! "Exploring Terra-Firma: Creating Sustainable Landscapes and Healthy Communities," the 13th Annual Winter Conference & Eco-Marketplace, sponsored by the Ecological Landscaping Association, is scheduled for March 1-3, 2007 in Springfield, Massachusetts. URI College of the Environment and Life Sciences and the New England Wild Flower Society are co-hosting the conference. Pre-conference intensive workshop on Thursday, March 1, is on "soil foodwebs." Check the program for the details about these tracks:

• Track I on Friday: Pest Management
• Track II on Friday: Ecological Lawn Care
• Track III on Friday: Permaculture
• Track IV on Friday: Woody Ornamentals
• Track I on Saturday: Healthy Communities
• Track II on Saturday: Water
• Track III on Saturday: General Interest

Eco-Marketplace highlights include a skills center on pruning, tool sharpening, compost tea brewing, and other practical information. The bookstore features hard-to-find ecological landscaping publications.

2007 Conference for the Home Gardener

On Friday, March 9, a day-long Conference for the Home Gardener at the University of Connecticut has a great program that includes presentations on the "site-challenged garden," herbs, "More than a Pretty Face: Native Alternatives to Invasive Exotic Plants," and container plants. Cost is $80 if you register before March 2.