In First Person
Larry Weaner
Larry Weaner, principal of Larry Weaner Landscape Associates, is nationally recognized for combining expertise in horticulture, landscape design, and ecological restoration. His book Garden Revolution: How Our Landscapes Can Be a Source of Environmental Change (2016) received an American Horticultural Society Book Award in 2017. Here’s his story, in his own words.
For ‘In First Person,’ Leaflet Editor-in-Chief Wayne Mezitt interviews people in horticulture and adjacent fields by asking a standard set of questions about their work. The column offers an opportunity for people in these fields to share with readers about their passions, what motivates them, and how they define and measure success. Based on the idea that we’re often reluctant to talk openly about ourselves because of the potential for miscommunication or misinterpretation, Wayne transforms his conversation with interviewees into a personal story from the interviewee’s first-person perspective.
Some of my clients express surprise when they learn that my entry into the world of environmental design was not nearly as grand
as they had expected. Upon my graduation from Williamsport Area Community College in 1977, and after a series of unforeseen
8 | September 2023
situations, I joined Weston Nurseries as my first fulltime job. I had yet to understand what direction my career would take, and my curious mind was anxious to gather more knowledge.
Over the next several years I learned to appreciate that my college and work experience had endowed me with a far broader schooling than I had realized at first, and that my practical horticultural expertise was significantly deeper than many of my academically trained contemporaries. I decided to explore running a business of my own, founding Larry Weaner Landscape Associates (LWLA) in the Berkshires in 1982. Consulting with several acquaintances at local landscape businesses and garden centers, I soon built a small client base, mostly among out-of-state property owners who summered in the region, providing design and gardening advice and maintenance services for their properties. Running a design-build business was my objective, never contemplating the role that restoration ecology would eventually play.
A major concern conveyed by some of my Berkshire clients centered around their partytime anxiety when they hosted events at their summer home. They commonly expressed worry
that their gardens would not be sufficiently pristine to properly appeal to their guests, so pre-party garden fixups became a part of my work. This aroused my curiosity, wondering why expertly designed gardens would need to be altered, if they could be initially designed for low maintenance and better self-sufficiency.
During this same period, I enrolled in a 3-day seminar at the Harvard Graduate School of Landscape Design, featuring presentations by landscape architects A. E. Bye and Armistead Browning discussing native plant communities. Integrating this information with my Berkshire challenges, I began tailoring my efforts to focus on
MHS Leaflet | 9
enhancing my relationship with clients and advising them on use of longer-term strategies for plant choices and garden design. A few years later in the late 1980’s, I moved to Philadelphia, married my longtime sweetheart, and broadened my ambitions. I was developing an awareness of the opportunity to design better landscapes by applying nature’s principles.
In the winter of 1990, seeking to stay busy during my slow business period, I decided to try something different: I rented a room at the Morris Arboretum and asked several landscape design experts from my local network to make presentations for an audience that turned out to be about 30 attendees. I chose a grandiose name “New Directions in the American Landscape (NDAL)”, and everyone seemed impressed with the initial event. Based upon this success, I decided to make NDAL an annual event that would provide opportunities for self-education and attract
influential speakers. I soon realized that it simultaneously had become an unexpected professional educational experience for me as well. NDAL has now evolved to become a conference and workshop series dedicated to advancing the art, culture, and science of ecologybased landscape design, and a serendipitous component of my company’s success.
In NDAL’s third year, James van Sweden agreed to be a presenter, and I had scheduled myself to be the next speaker following his talk––what was I thinking! None of my experiences had encompassed the range of projects that were standard for him, so I focused my presentation toward smallerscale gardens. Even though my examples were far less substantial than van Sweden’s landscape sweeps of plantings, they were more approachable for most NDAL attendees. In retrospect, keeping the ideas in my talk to a more practical, non-academic, approach turned out to be quite
10 | September 2023
relatable for our audience. The fundamental principles of proper landscape design were similar, no matter what the scope of the project.
Appreciating the imperative for using a long-term approach to garden design has taken years for me to grasp, and I’ve experienced many hurdles. Recognizing that nature is always stronger than any individual approach has engendered an appreciation of observing natural plant communities as my guide. Understanding the ecological characteristics of the site is always the fundamental consideration. And my willingness to study and know each plant’s biological characteristics has been fundamental to advise clients about how to successfully use them.
When I design any garden, my objective is to ensure that it eventually becomes selfsustainable with minimal attention or intervention. But getting to
this stage requires more time than most clients first anticipate, and their specific expectations must be tempered. Aggressive weeds always divert our attention until they are controlled, and proper maintenance as the garden develops is essential to reduce setbacks. Once native species become dominant, weed-suppression maintenance is significantly reduced. I’ve developed a perniciousnessscale for weeds and apply my personal pesticide sieve for weed management that is stricter than EPA standards, using chemical controls properly and only when natural alternatives won’t work.
As LWLA grew, we recruited individuals who excel in their field of knowledge, pay attention to details, and communicate effectively. I find that my staff and consultants often have better ideas than I, and they are willing to freely share knowledge. Developing creative, problemsolving approaches for my clients had always been foremost in
MHS Leaflet | 11
my mind, and as we discussed our challenges and evaluated alternatives, we adopted new strategies that became our project protocols. As our staffing depth developed over the ensuing years, LWLA has continued to develop new operating principles and procedures.
As I’ll soon embark on my fifth decade in business, I’ve vowed to leverage the personal and professional expertise that I’ve developed over my career, delegating to staff many of the management aspects of running the business. Our daughter Sara has recently joined LWLA, taking responsibility for the details of our educational programs, including NDAL. This enables me to pay more attention to what I do best and like doing the most: consultative design with clients, exploring new ideas, and enjoying my outside interests, which include composing music and travel.
many indigenous cultures in the ways they treat the land. Contemporary landscape design practices rely far too little on these ancient horticultural practices, probably because they are difficult to readily understand. As modern designers and practitioners, we often apply expedient measures that work less effectively as time goes on, resulting in undesirable long-term ramifications. I’m now focusing my attention on schooling myself on the fundamental precepts of how and why indigenous people successfully applied their knowledge of nature to create acceptable, long-term outcomes to benefit future generations. My hope is to re-introduce some of these long-neglected principles back into the mainstream of current environmental installation and design.
For more information, go to Larry Weaner Landscape Associates, and you can contact me directly at lweaner@lweanerdesign.com or 215-720-5300.
I recognize that there is a commonality of theme among
12 | September 2023
Marianne Orlando is a landscape architect turned freelance illustrator who loves plants, and does commissioned drawings of homes, pets and people. You can see samples of her work at www.marianneorlando.com
MHS Leaflet | 13
FESTIVAL OF TREES
BY PENNI JENKINS
It’s hard to believe! Fifteen years ago a very small all-volunteer group held the first Festival of Trees at the Garden at Elm Bank. There were 30 trees with creative themes ranging from animals and birds to sports to babies to teddy bears to nature and snowmen. Traditional Christmas ideas were represented by “Christmas in an Italian Villa,” “A Victorian Christmas” and “Christmas Delights.” Donors included garden clubs, organizations, businesses, vendors and individuals.
I think I have the best job as part of the Festival of Trees Committee: I am in charge of the trees. For the 15th Annual Festival of Trees this year, we are preparing for about 70 trees ranging in size from tabletop to a soaring 9 feet.
Planning for the event’s November opening begins in earnest in June, when the MHS website is updated with this year’s opening and closing dates as well as information concerning how to donate a tree. We are often contacted as early as June from people looking for these instructions. And now, as I write this, we have commitments from four
14 | September 2023
newcomers—new donors are always welcome! First timers last year numbered seven. We also have commitments from stalwart donors, some who have been with us since the very beginning.
During August and September we reach out to potential new tree donors as well as contacting past supporters. Some folks take a couple of years off and then donate again. It is good to see them back. Many people know they want to participate but their ideas have not yet taken shape. While we need commitments early to save a space, full details of their tree and theme are not required until mid-October.
In early November, the schedule for tree delivery and set up is finalized. The pedestals and risers have been painted. Each tree’s size, color, theme and color of lights are considered as the room is designed. To maintain room for our visitors to fully appreciate the trees, they can’t be crammed in. Tie-on tree labels, tree box labels, and donor instructions are prepared and placed in the location where the tree will be located, and a map is prepared for use in directing trees to their locations.
Some things I’ve learned over these years, which might help everyone during the holiday season, are that tree density is difficult to predict and height varies from manufacturer to manufacturer. Some consider the stand to be part of the height, others do not – so 6’ trees are not always the same height. Sometimes a tree is dwarfed by its assigned space; other times the tree overwhelms the space. As both require additional thought, the initial set up of the Hunnewell Building is frequently rearranged.
MHS Leaflet | 15
There is still a lot of work to be done once all the trees are decorated. These are the steps that take the event from a room full of eclectic trees to a magical holiday scene. Electrical wires must be taped down and hidden—and this is a time-consuming activity. ‘Fluff’ to resemble snow is placed on the floor beneath the trees. Some of the information previously provided by donors may be updated (the tree title may have changed), and if no title has been provided, we create one. Numbers are assigned based on the tree’s location to enable visitors to find a specific tree. All this information is compiled into the program which is available during the event.
Tree signs with number, title, and donor information are printed and laminated. The tie-on tree labels are removed and saved for reattaching just before the raffle drawing. A few years ago there were three snowman trees and all identification was removed by eager volunteers helping with the drawing. Which was which? I was summoned to sort them out. Hence, tie-on labels. Raffle instructions are printed. Programs are printed. Photos are taken.
The room is vacuumed a final time, and now the posts for the raffle tickets are put in front of each tree ready to have the tree signs attached. We did not always have this system. In the early days there were no
16 | September 2023
posts. We cut a hole in a cardboard ‘box lunch’ box which was set on the floor in front of the tree. Identifying signage was held in a split bamboo plant stake which in turn was standing in a flowerpot full of sand. There were no pedestals or risers. The arrangement was primitive, to say the least, but functional.
Equally primitive was the manual recording of the raffle ticket purchaser information on sheets of paper. This information was subsequently entered into the computer and then matched with the winning tickets. Just look how far we have come! Over the years, we have streamlined the raffle ticket registration process. People spoke directly to a person seated at a computer and their information was input directly. And now this process has been further refined through the addition of online ticketing. The phone numbers of most visitors are acquired at the point of ticket sale. This information is then available to the on-site raffle ticket seller. It is only necessary to enter the ticket numbers next to each purchaser’s name already in the computer.
On the last day, after Festival of Trees has come to a close and the drawing is complete, the winning tickets are entered in the computer where through the magic of a specially developed program they are matched with the winner’s name and phone number. Call sheets are printed and the winners notified. My job is finished.
This narrative has neglected all the other valuable parts of the Festival of Trees. 2014 saw the major addition of Snow Village.
Bill and Ellen Meagher donated the extensive
MHS Leaflet | 17
model train display. At first, part of the village was set up in the former visitors’ center. There were far too many elements to fit in the space available, so the next year, the village was set up in a former storeroom in the Education Building. While Bill continues to tinker with the arrangements each year, the ‘trains’ gained a permanent home and don’t need to be taken down.
The lights in the Garden are a glowing attraction. Each year more lighted decorations are added for visitors to enjoy as they walk through the winter Garden. Guests can sip hot chocolate as they wander and before they leave can melt s’mores at the fire pits. The Festival of Trees experience is rounded out with elements such as an area for family games, occasional choral music, and activity booklets for children to enjoy.
What started as an event that originated from the dedication of a handful of volunteers has now become MHS’s largest fundraiser. Over the years, my fellow Festival of Trees committee members and I have learned a lot, and I’m proud to be a factor in the event’s longevity and continued success. As this event has grown I’ve seen our community grow as well: from tree donors who have decorated beautiful and creative trees for years, to new donors who want to be part of the fun; from volunteers who haven’t missed a single year, to new volunteers who are excited to be a part of the hands-on experience; from visitors who have made this a yearly tradition in their families, to visitors who get to experience it for the first time this year!
18 | September 2023
Perhaps this personal perspective has struck inspiration for a tree idea. We’d love for you to be a part of the 15th Annual Festival of Trees by donating a tree! Reserve a space for your tree, even if you don’t have your full tree planned out. And no matter how you’ll be participating in Festival of Trees this year, I’m looking forward to seeing you this coming holiday season.
MHS Leaflet | 19
After yearly visits to the NE Spring Flower Show and various courses at Elm Bank, Penni finally took the Master Gardener Course in 2004 and has been volunteering in various capacities for MHS ever since. She is a member of the Friends Council, serves on the board of The Garden Club Federation of Massachusetts, Inc. and the GCFM Landscape Design Council.
Darwin and the Art of Botany: Observations on the Curious World of Plants
by James T. Costa & Bobbi Angell
Timber Press | 378pp. | $30.00
The Ghost in the Garden: In Search of Darwin's Lost Garden
by Jude Piesse Scribe | 336pp. | $28.00
Reviewed by Patrice Todisco
Whenever I travel, I make a point of seeking out house museums and their associated landscapes, the smaller and more obscure the better. I enjoy peeking into the lives of those who lived there, exploring their personal collections, and experiencing first-hand the environment which shaped them. If there are clues that have been left behind, traces of memory that connect the past to the present, so much the better.
And while I have not had the opportunity to visit Down House, where evolutionary biologist Charles Darwin lived for more than forty years, my interest was piqued when the piece ‘Charles Darwin’s Ugly Home’
20 | September 2023
by Jim Holden was featured in the July 22nd London Financial Times House Museum column. Having just received a copy of Darwin and the Art of Botany: Observations on the Curious World of Plants from Timber Press and having a copy of The Ghost in the Garden: In Search of Darwin’s Lost Garden in my never ending to be read book pile, suddenly Darwin seemed to be everywhere.
It is while at Down House that Darwin wrote On the Origins of Species in 1859. He had purchased the house nearly twenty years earlier, not long after his marriage to Emma Wedgwood, whose family founded the eponymous pottery line. While Darwin himself disparaged the architectural style, describing it as, according to Holden, ‘ugly’ and in a letter to his sister, looking ‘neither old or new,’ it provided the perfect environment for his writing, plant observations and growing family of ten, all of which blossomed there.
More than half of Darwin’s work following the publication of On the Origin of Species featured plants. He endlessly observed, experimented, and recorded what he discovered, sharing his revolutionary insights into plant biology in The Gardeners’ Chronicle, a journal published in London in the 19th and 20th centuries. He wrote six books (as well as 75 papers) dedicated to botanical subjects and the diversity of plants he covered was vast, including 125 species of climbers, nearly 70 orchid genres, 20 carnivorous plants, 200 species upon which he experimented for pollination and movement, as well as fruits and vegetables.
MHS Leaflet | 21
Photo of Charles Darwin at age seventytwo on the veranda at Dow House, with Parthenocissus twining up the post. Photo taken in 1881 by Messers. Elliot and Fry, published in The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin (1887).
Darwin and the Art of Botany pairs excerpts from these writings with historically appropriate botanical illustrations; it’s a marriage of science and art, both disciplines where creativity and observation are necessary. The idea for the book was conceived by botanical illustrator Bobbi Angell following a visit to the Oak Spring Garden Library. Inspired by the breadth of their collection, and informed by her own contemporary work, she proposed a book on climbing plants featuring Darwin’s writing illustrated with botanical illustrations culled from the library’s collection.
Produced as a collaboration between the New York Botanical Garden’s LuEsther T. Mertz Library and Oak Spring Garden Foundation, Darwin and the Art of Botany, features 45 chapters each devoted to a different plant species representing distinct threads of Darwin’s research. Each entry illustrates a range of Darwin’s botanical investigations using passages from his writings to describe his working methods and insights. Darwin scholar James T. Costa provides a brief introduction to Darwin’s
22 | September 2023
[Left] Cobaea scandens. Hand-colored engraving drawn by Sydenham Edwards, The Botanical Magazine 22: 851. [Right] Fragaria vesca. Watercolor by Elizabeth Blackwell, A Curious Herbal. Provided by Oak Spring Garden Foundation, Upperville, Virginia.
Catasetum maculatum. Lithograph, drawn by Sarah Anne Drake, for The Orchidaceae of Mexico and Guatemala by James Bateman. Provided by Oak Spring Garden Foundation, Upperville, Virginia.
life as well the introductory text for individual entries which are accompanied by Darwin’s writings and botanical illustrations, often rare, selected by Angell.
Darwin and the Art of Botany’s primary focus is on sharing the lesser-known writings of Darwin on plants for the first time. And while it's easy to dip in and out of, depending on what you are interested it, Darwin’s writing is scientific, providing in-depth observations about his experiments and observations about the natural world. If you want to learn what he discovered about nasturtiums, sweet peas, or cyclamen, it’s easy to find. To discover more about Darwin himself, including how the garden at his childhood home shaped him, consider The Ghost in the Garden: In Search of Darwin’s Lost Garden by Jude Piesse.
A combination of biography, social history, nature writing and memoir, The Ghost in the Garden shares the story of Piesse’s fascination with Darwin’s childhood home after she moves, with one small child and another on the way, next door to the property known as The Mount in Shrewsbury, Shropshire. Not much remains of the original seven acres that Darwin’s family lovingly cultivated, but what does remain inspires Piesse’s journey of exploration and discovery as she delves into the history of Darwin’s life.
A lecturer in English literature at Liverpool John Moores University, Piesse wanders the remnants of the property, some of which is now owned by the Shropshire Wildlife Trust, looking for clues to its past. A
MHS Leaflet | 23
24 | September 2023
Darwin in his Greenhouse. Illustrated London News, December 1887
similar process unfolds as she researches archives and other primary sources, perhaps a bit erratically but always enthusiastically, chasing down an exhaustive list of details about Darwin, his family, the social mores of the time and just about anything she can think of. The result, while at times a bit uneven, provides compelling evidence of The Mount’s enduring place in Darwin’s memory and the garden’s role in his sense of identity.
For the Darwins were a family of gardeners at a time when the gardening profession was in transition, as was the English landscape. And if Darwin is the ghost in the garden, so too are the family members who kept him informed of the garden’s progress as he traveled the globe, as well as the gardeners who labored on the family’s behalf. While today the garden has fallen into a state of evocative obscurity, for Darwin it was always a presence which according to Piesse followed him to the end.
Perhaps there’s something poetic about Darwin’s childhood home with what Piesse describes as an enchanting paradise of paths and lawns with flowers and fruits from near and far, setting the stage for his physical and intellectual travels. For it is here that he carried out some of his first horticultural experiments and drew inspiration for landscape features that would later appear at Down House. And while The Mount and its landscape may barely recognizable, Down House, ugly or not, is owned by English Heritage with all the amenities of a tourist site. Where one might best find Darwin’s ghost may well depend on how hard they are willing to look.
Darwin and the Art of Botany: Observations on the Curious World of Plants is available for pre-order with a publication date of October 17th.
To learn more about Down House visit English Heritage.
To see a picture of Darwin’s Childhood Garden visit Shropshire Wildlife Trust.
MHS Leaflet | 25
Patrice Todisco writes about parks and gardens at the award-winning blog, Landscape Notes.
Edward Charles Pickering (1846-1919)
Prior to 1930, research and development in horticulture was a tough business: the rewards were short term and meager.1 In the past, once the product was distributed, others with larger purses and facilities freely reproduced the product, accumulating large profits while leaving the originator with fame, but not much profit. This was the case with Ephraim Wales Bull (1808-1895,) originator of the Concord grape: he died poor, cared for by his friends. His epithet on his tombstone in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Concord is “HE SOWED OTHERS REAPED.”
Featured Collection: Member Portraits
We were pleased when J. Stephen Casscles asked the Society for permission to use seven of our images in his revised and updated book, Grapes of the Hudson Valley and Other Cool Climate Regions of the United States and Canada. He featured Bull in one of his featured sketches. Wanting to discover what our Collections held on Bull, we searched our images, ephemera, biographical files and Transactions.
Bull, a gold beater2 by trade, was also a horticulturist with an avid interest in grapes. He was a member of the Society, frequent exhibitor and won many prizes. At his first exhibition in 1852, the new grape he bred was almost overlooked. He named the grape the “Concord grape”3 after the town where he lived and originated the cultivar.
Science is an ennobling pursuit only when it is wholly unselfish.
" " Portrait of Ephraim Wales Bull, undated. Member Album, Society Archives. 26 | September 2023
In 1854, he offered the grape for sale through Hovey and Co., earning $3,200 in its first year. His hopes for wealth were soon dashed, as “every nurseryman in the country had a stock” of the grape that they could easily reproduce. Bull, a small farmer, did not enjoy a piece of the action he created.
Postcard: "The Bull House Home, of the Concord Grape." Historical Series of Revolutionary Towns, Early 20th Century Towns, published by Edith A. Buck, Concord, Massachusetts. Society’s Collections. The Bull house was on Lexington Road in Concord, Massachusetts.
1Plant patents were first granted under the Plant Patent Act of 1930 (35 U.S.C. 161-164.)
Under patent law, the inventor of a plant is the person who first appreciates the distinctive qualities of a plant and reproduces it asexually. Plants discovered in the wild are not eligible. Requirements for a patent are complex. Prior to 1930, a new variety could be reproduced in unlimited quantity by anyone. Some breeders would protect their investment in the short term by limiting sales and imposing a high sales price. For example, Frank Condito, aka Francisco Condito, of Hingham Garden & Flower Company charged a UK customer $2,000 for a carnation plant ordered on January 31, 1936.
2A gold beater beats blocks of solid gold to make gold leaf.
3The Concord grape is a cultivar derived from the grape species, Vitis labrusca. They are "slip skin" grapes, i.e., its thick skin easily separates from the pulp. They are used as table grapes, wine grapes and juice grapes. Concord grapes are highly aromatic, tangy, and sweet with a unique musky flavor. More of these unique purple grapes are grown in the U.S. than any other variety, according to the Concord Grape Association.
MHS Leaflet | 27
In 1873, the Society honored Bull with a special gold medal for producing the best hardy seedling, the Concord grape. In 1892, he was elected as an honorary member of the Society. Read an appreciation of Bull, the mishaps surrounding his attempt to exhibit the grape for the first time and an account of the Concord grape in the Society’s Transactions 1908 here.
MHS Book Club
The next meeting of the Book Club is on Tuesday, September 19th at 1:30 pm. in the Crockett Garden. The club will be discussing Andrea Wulf’s The Brother Gardeners. If the weather is poor, the meeting will be in the Education Building. All are welcome to attend.
Here is the line-up of the Club's upcoming book discussions:
» September 19: The Brother Gardeners by Andrea Wulf
» October 17: Soil: The Story of a Black Mother’s Garden by Camille Dungy
» November 21: Otherwise Normal People: Inside the Thorny World of Competitive Rose Gardening by Aurelia C. Scott
» December 19: Strange Bright Blooms: A History of Cut Flowers by Randy Malamud
» January 16: Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer
28 | September 2023
Broadside for THE CONCORD GRAPE. 1859. Society’s Collections.
Help Grow our Collections
Thank you to J. Stephen Casscles, Anne Simunovic and Chicago Botanic Gardens for their generous contributions to our Collections. Consider making a donation to the Library's Collections from the Society’s Amazon Smile Wishlist. It is just a click away!
COME VISIT!
The Library is open on Thursdays from 10 am to 1 pm, by appointment and when the lights are on. Members have borrowing privileges. Please email Library & Archives Manager Maureen O’Brien for an appointment if you want to schedule a visit.
While here, check out the Little Free Library in front of the Education Building. You will find pamphlets, magazines and duplicate copies of books from the Library, all free!
MHS Leaflet | 29
By John Lee
John shares stories of Bert and Brenda and their gardening wisdom. These chronicles feature recipes, tried-and-true gardening practices, and seasonal struggles and successes. Bert and Brenda were first introduced in the March 2022 issue of Leaflet.
They’d had a rather challenging summer by any measure. Alternating drought, flooding rains accompanying plant heath challenges… Bert and Brenda were beginning to feel the weight of the world was settling upon their shoulders. Even the fresh air on the early morning and evening breezes seemed not to lift their spirits. (Mostly the air felt clammy; their ordinarily loose clothing clung to their bodies like an unwanted second skin. Sue B said it was not ‘a pretty picture’ – she could be famously blunt at the most inappropriate moments (like when she projected her discomforts onto somebody else). This unfortunate quirk of immaturity particularly rankled Brenda whose tolerance for incivility, intentional or otherwise, was wearing thin as this summer droned on. Needless to say, Bert suffered this summer only a bit better but he was not standing over a steaming kettle of preserves on a hot stove. Nonetheless they both retired to little relief most evenings, slept poorly and rose early with another long day ahead of them. Sue B and her brother, Forest, had long since forsaken the creature comforts of
30 | September 2023
Preserve
their respective sleeping quarters and had taken to hammocks on the porch under mosquito nets there better to suffer the incessant whine of the Anopheles family than the weight-loss clinic of sleeping indoors. “This will be over soon” was not playing well in the backs of their minds as Sue begrudgingly hung out the wash every Tuesday.
What little relief there was came in the form of pioneer frugality: despite the added need to feed their niece ands nephew, there was putby to spare from last summer’s bumper crops and delightful weather and thanks, in part to the augmented labor pool (mostly Forest), Bert had planted much more than they might have needed given a ‘normal’ off-season. To be honest, even with the extra help, Bert had been forced to be (shall we say) overly generous to others of God’s creatures who were prone to pillage in the leafy greens, tomatoes and melons.
In fact, due to the ungodly and unceasing humidity day in and day out, Bert’s gardens began to look like controlled laboratory trials at ‘Organic Gardening’. As in past seasons when slugs were simply a tolerable nuisance, he alternatively trialed various beers. Last year with the unbelievable bloom in craft brews Bert had set out to see if alcohol content, style (IPA vs ‘sour’ vs stout vs Bud Light or similar cost-saving formula) made even a whit of difference to a marauding slug. Near as he could tell, the slugs lacked a noticeably discerning palate which tended to be a little dispiriting; Bert, too, failed to understand how the consumer beer market could support so much variety when, if the beer was cold enough, it was not the taste but the temperature that really pleased the palate - Gospel according to Bert. This past winter, the collected wisdom about slug bait definitively opined that on a warm summer night, any self-respecting slug could not be deterred from sharing the tomato and musk melon crop, in particular. It was like ’coons in the corn field - when the fruit was ripe, some sort of ‘sharing’ protocol was de riguer. Just when the melons or tomatoes (in particular) were perfectly vine-ripened, the slugs seemed to materialize out of nowhere sure as night follows day. Now, every morning Bert (and this year) Forest had ‘slug-fest’. The war seemed endless, gross and unwinnable.
Back a few weeks, both Bert and Brenda had noticed that Forest had taken to ‘energy drinks’ that are so widely advertised that some marketing mischief had to be afoot. Like cigarettes, they surmised that anything that gets that much media attention probably is not good for
MHS Leaflet | 31
you. They suggested to him that such drinks might not be good for him. He reasoned that the extra caffeine gave him a boost of energy when he needed it. That got Bert to thinking about the slug problem. If so-called energy drinks were, in fact, bad for your heart (as some believed), what would they do to a slug (a relatively simple organism)? He reasoned
32 | September 2023
that coffee grounds were likely to be ineffective because most of the caffeine had previously been consumed. Remembering his research that showed a lack of differentiation between various beer styles, he asked Brenda to buy a small jar of cheap instant coffee from which he and Forest could produce various caffeine-by-volume formulations and apply same to the foliage of some of the plants with a trusty hand mister. They would test-drive this idea in the sunflower beds because they were planted in ranks and were regularly victimized by slugs. It would be an easy experiment, the evidence of slug death by overcaffeination should be obvious. Before he ruined the flavor of his prized musk melons, he first needed to know if the idea was a good one.
Imagine, if this cockamamie idea worked, he mused to Brenda as they eased into the creaky glider on the front porch one evening after another bout of freezing string beans. Forest and Sue B’s lackluster future might be assured and he would buy her a home with a mini-split for temperature regulation. She, Mrs. Practical, promptly dashed his capitalist dreams: if the slugs were deterred, someone else who had a better business head probably would take the idea to market were there one which she felt sure there wasn’t. And, besides, if instant coffee was
MHS Leaflet | 33
Glazed zucchini - Serves 4
2 lbs medium zucchini (5-6 inches long)
2 Tbsp olive oil
2 cloves garlic
1 tsp salt
1/4 cup water
1 Tbsp thinly sliced fresh basil
Trim the zucchini. Soak it in cold water for 30 minutes to freshen it. Drain the zucchini and pat it dry. Halve it lengthwise, then crosswise into quarters.
In a large skillet, combine the zucchini, oil, whole garlic cloves, salt, and just enough water to cover the bottom of the pan. Cover and cook over medium heat for 5-7 minutes, until the zucchini begins to soften.
Remove the lid, raise the heat to high and cook, stirring, until the liquid evaporates and the zucchini is glazed with the oil and beginning to brown lightly.
Remove the garlic (the zucchini will be somewhat fragile), carefully stir in the basil, add more salt, if you like, and serve.
so cheap, there wasn’t going to be any money in this scheme anyway and what works this year will surely prove ineffective the next. And on it went. Bert was somewhat crest-fallen in the face of her irrefutable logic. Next year, he would prove his theory. Maybe.
Sadly for Brenda with two kids in the house this summer, Mrs. D did not come down. She said there’d be too many peas in the porridge and she’d just be under foot. She was not keeping up with her own gardens as well this summer and needed to be home to help her husband, Francis, who didn’t seem to be keeping well in the heat. Bert was slightly relieved (though said nothing, of course) – there were already too many warm bodies taking up space and, on the best of days, their help was less than he might have liked. The heat did nothing for his humor.
As usual, there was a zucchini glut at this time of year. Try as she may, Brenda was hard pressed to find enough recipes that would excite the
34 | September 2023
family. Cold zucchini soup did not hit the mark but ‘Glazed Zucchini’ that she’d clipped from some long-lost food magazine did get good reviews around the table for no apparently good reason. It was certainly easy to prepare.
She also dug a ‘Sunny Sweet Potato Salad’ out of her recipe box that everyone seemed to enjoy probably because it was served cold and small Idahos and sweet potatoes from their garden were particularly young and sweet unlike the storage spuds in the market (now last year’s).
As it turned out, over the next few weeks, there was a marked improvement in quality of the sunflower foliage, blooms were prolific but there weren’t drifts of stricken mollusks as evidence of slug decimation. Apparent ‘success’ was more appetizing than apparent failure, he said to himself. At least the window dressing seemed helpful. He would palaver with Brenda and, with her approval, test-drive his idea in the vegetable garden. Despite the weather and his general dislike of instant coffee, Bert, at least was energized. What if he could improve airflow in the gardens, keep the foliage dry and thereby make the garden environment less attractive to slugs? Brenda thought the heat had gotten to his aging brain.
Sunny Sweet Potato Salad
Serves 8
Keeps 2 days
2 sweet potatoes & 2 Idaho potatoes cut into 1/2 inch cubes
1 cup mayonnaise
3 Tbsp chopped mango chutney
2-3 Tbsp curry powder
4 scallions
1 Tbsp flat leaf parsley salt and pepper
MHS Leaflet | 35
John Lee is the recently retired manager of MHS Gold Medal winner Allandale Farm, Cognoscenti contributor and president of MA Society for Promoting Agriculture. He sits on the Governor's Food Policy Council and UMASS Board of Public Overseers and is a longtime op-ed contributor to Edible Boston and other publications.
RABBITS
By Catherine Cooper
A mild winter has caused many of us to feel like Beatrix Potter’s Mr. McGregor as conditions have been favorable for an increase in the rabbit population, with the result that we have been involved in our own personal battles against Peter Rabbit and his relatives throughout this growing season. Not only will they consume leafy vegetables, but things such as pansies, coneflowers or asters can all be part of their varied diet.
Even worse can be the unsightliness and damage done to trees and shrubs, whether browsing on low growing shoots - my black chokeberry shrubs come to mind in this case - or the stripping of bark from trees and larger shrubs, something that primarily happens in winter, but is not restricted to that season. The removal of bark and underlying plant tissue around the entire circumference will ultimately result in the loss of the tree, as the damage deprives the tree of water and nutrients. Shrubs damaged in this way may regenerate from the base, but trees will succumb to this damage.
There are several things that can be done to protect plants from damage, or at least greatly mitigate the problem.
1. Enclose/Cover
This is a common approach where vegetable and fruit crops are concerned as they are usually grown in such a fashion that enclosing them is relatively easy and aesthetics are not of such high importance. Fortunately where rabbits are concerned,
36 | September 2023
they cannot leap very high nor climb so protecting leafy vegetables can either be done by enclosing a vegetable garden with chicken wire, growing them in raised planters or by using some form of cloche to cover smaller crops. It should be noted that any wire-enclosed space should have the wire buried ideally at least six inches as rabbits can burrow under fencing, but not with the determination of groundhogs. The height of the fencing need only be a couple of feet as rabbits will only eat as high as they can reach while sitting up on their hind legs and even then they prefer to browse with four feet firmly on the ground.
In the case of tree bark, a tree guard such as a vinyl plastic spiral wrapped around the trunk is a small price to pay in order to prevent the destruction of a tree. To stop similar damage to shrubs a temporary barrier needs to be erected, and if this is happening in winter this needs to be tall enough to take into account the extra height rabbits can obtain by standing on snow pack. Chicken wire or even stakes and burlap can be enough to deter rabbits.
MHS Leaflet | 37
Peter Rabbit and Mr. McGregor, illustration by Marianne Orlando
2. Repel
With more ornamental plants visible barriers are not generally desirable, and therefore repellents are a more preferred option. These fall into three categories: unpleasant smells, the smell of predators or unpleasant taste. Unpleasant smells can be things such as garlic, rotten eggs or things such as cloves and cinnamon, which are more pleasing to humans. Even things such as coffee grounds can be effective. Deterrents distilled from the urine of predatorsfoxes and coyotes - can also be used and lastly deterrents in the form of hot pepper wax leave an unpleasant taste. Whichever form of deterrent used, whether in spray or granular form, they need to be regularly reapplied, especially after heavy rainfall. One is not better over another and the choice can be dependent on what and how much is needing protection. In fact in severe cases it can be a good idea to vary the type of repellent used so the rabbits do not become accustomed to any one type.
3. Scare
There are a couple of tactics that fall under scaring. Owning a dog can be a great deterrent, although the weak point here is that rabbits are cunning and will learn that our pets are not outside at all hours. Employing decoy predators, for example plastic life-size owls or even realistic looking snakes can make rabbits think twice. However, in order for these to be effective they need to be moved around: otherwise
38 | September 2023
rabbits soon learn that these predators are not real.
Sometimes a mix of approaches is needed to have long term effectiveness, and where ornamental plants are concerned it can sometimes be less frustrating to concede that growing something rabbit resistant would be better. Plants that fall into this category are either aromatic (mint), toxic (monkshood), prickly (sea holly), fuzzy (lamb’s ears) or sappy (euphorbia). So with that in mind, here is a selection of plants you could use if levels of rabbit frustration are reaching great heights.
*In snowy winters the bark of almost every young tree can be fair game.
And lastly, there is my own personal rabbit decoy - allowing daisy fleabane to flourish in certain parts of my garden. The young leaves are preferred by rabbits over things such as coneflowers, but this comes at a price - daisy fleabane is a prolific seeder and will supply more plants than either I or the rabbits want!
VEGETABLES
onions, squash, cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers and potatoes.
HERBS
aromatic foliage, eg. thyme, rosemary, sage, chives.
ANNUALS
spider flower, geranium, lantana, pot marigold, sweet alyssum, zinnia, snapdragon and begonia.
PERENNIALS
allium, agastache, Montauk
daisy, catmint, bee balm, iris, baptisia, astilbe, yarrow, poppy, lavender, bugbane, lady’s mantle, hellebore, milkweed, salvia and tickseed.
SHRUBS
butterfly bush, bluebeard, viburnum, dogwood, boxwood, flowering quince.
TREES*
Japanese maples, hawthorn, magnolia, redbud and maidenhair.
Born in England, Catherine learned to garden from her parents and from that developed a passion for plants. Catherine is in charge of the greenhouse at Weston NurseriesChelmsford. When not at Weston Nurseries, she can often be found in her flower beds or tending to an ever-increasing collection of houseplants.
MHS Leaflet | 39
