On the upcoming 4th of July we celebrate our country’s independence. The annual commemoration comes loaded with spirited symbolism: fireworks, the Stars and Stripes, the rousing National Anthem, marching bands, bandstands draped with tri-colored bunting, citizens attired in colonial dress. The country’s majestic National Bird, the Bald Eagle, perches on signs and banners. This is the holiday when the country’s iconography is in full flower.

What is missing in this patriotic pageantry is … our National Flower. The rose, our official National Floral Emblem, would seem strikingly out of place amid Independence Day’s blaze of red, white and blue. One can imagine the elegant, demure American rose and her brood arriving at a 4th of July picnic, attired as for a ball, taking in the cacophony of sound and color, gazing with distaste at the motley of polo shirts and Bermuda shorts. She tentatively sniffs the barbecue-scented air, only to turn heel synchronously with her blushing spouse and trailing vine of pink-cheeked children. It’s not the roses’ fault, you understand, this just ain’t their scene.

We see no roses on the 4th of July. Nor are they in evidence on Thanksgiving where they would pose uneasily amid the indian corn, cornstalks and gourds. Roses play no significant role in any of our national holidays—or in our national imagination.

The rose was established as the National Floral Emblem when President Ronald Reagan signed Proclamation 5574 in 1986, in accordance with the resolution approved by the Senate and House of Representatives. As a proclamation, the measure does not have the power of law. Law or no, it’s time we chose a more suitable flower to symbolize this land of ours.

Roses are splendorous and lovely flowers, let me be clear. The last thing I wish to do is to face off with America’s rose fanciers. Only a fool would argue with thousands of passionate people wielding pruning shears. No, I look to you, my rose-loving fellow Americans. I know you to be a discerning breed. Surely you will agree that the rose has no place as our National Flower.

If the genteel rose is to serve as our National Flower, we might as well name the hummingbird our National Bird. So as not to clash with the rose’s refined and nuanced aura, the Stars and Stripes should be rendered in earth tones, and the White House daubed a tasteful taupe. The national pastime? Croquet would be fitting, don’t you think? The cucumber sandwich will gently shove aside the hamburger as a staple item for Independence Day picnics. It’s important the rose feel comfortable.

The domesticated rose, first of all, is not a native plant, but originates in Asia. Roses didn’t really come on the scene here until the 1700s. The cultivated roses arranged and sold by stateside florists today are nearly all foreign born and bred, their stems and petals never touching American soil before taking refuge in the cool confines of florists’ refrigerators. The profits from cut roses go abroad, which ill becomes the nation’s flower of choice.

The rose is a symbol … well, what does it NOT symbolize? I take Gertrude Stein’s famous dictum, “A rose is a rose is a rose,” to mean that, existing somewhere within the thicket of its symbolism (in poems, paintings, songs and wallpaper) is the actual rose itself. You can hardly see or smell the flower itself in this overgrown garden of metaphors and panoply.

The rose has represented kings, queens, dukes, duchesses, lords, ladies, courts, religious orders and military units of nations near and far, friend and foe. The rose today serves as the symbol of New York State, the District of Columbia, Georgia, Iowa and North Dakota. It is emblematic of a large bouquet of countries as well, including Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Iran, Iraq, Ecuador, the United Kingdom and Romania. The rose is a universal symbol—and that’s the problem. America is a special kind of place. Its symbols ought to reflect its unique character.

Since the 1880s, flower fanciers have battled to have their favorite flower become the nation’s symbol. Margaret B. Harvey of Pennsylvania initiated the National Flower Movement in 1887. Residing near General Washington’s camp at Valley Forge, she wrote a poem, “The National Flower, or Valley Forge Arbutus.” This charming plant, with its laurel-like leaves and flowers resembling 5-pointed stars, failed to spark the imagination of the nation or its legislators.

Miss Harvey did succeed in making the issue of the National Flower part of the national conversation. More than 70 bills proposing this or that flower have come before Congress. The carnation, tobacco flower, clover, corn tassel, columbine, mountain laurel, and chrysanthemums have been nominated. In the 1890s, Representative Butler from Iowa was nicknamed “Pansy” Butler for his passionate advocacy of that flower. In the 1950s and 60s, Senator Everett Dirksen of Illinois steadfastly and sonorously made the case for the marigold, cheered on by David Burpee, my predecessor at the company his father founded in 1876.

For 120 years, newspaper letters to the editor across the land have variously proclaimed the merits of the black-eyed susan, the Magnolia glauca (which can grow into a tree 70 feet in height), indian corn, the pumpkin, goldenrod, phlox and the ubiquitous pine tree. In 1905, a botanist proposed creating a unique species to be the National Flower, by crossing the chrysanthemum with the Siberian aster. The critic Lewis Mumford, weary of sprawling new highways in the 1950s, waggishly proposed the cloverleaf to represent the nation.

The rose won the honor in 1986, a full century after Miss Harvey’s poem appeared. The rose was supported by Senator Lindsay Boggs of Louisiana and promoted by a large and well-financed rose lobby, which has since vanished into the Colombian jungle.

I hereby nominate the Sunflower as our new National Flower. It is time for the Sunflower to step up and kick some serious rose butt. The sunflower is native to America, and was cultivated both by native Americans and Aztecs in pre-Columbian Mexico.

The sunflower reflects American pragmatism, lending itself to multiple uses. Sunflowers are a native economic powerhouse. The sunflower is one of the four major native crops that have global significance, along with the blueberry, pecan and cranberry. Millions of acres are devoted to sunflower oilseed production. Sunflowers are an enormous blessing to the world economy, rivaling the rose in importance abroad, and blowing its petals off here in the States.

Native Americans have been cultivating the plant since 2300 B.C., probably predating corn, beans and squash. The native American tribes ground the roasted seeds into a fine meal for baking, thickening soups, and making a thick butter akin to peanut butter. They made a tea-like drink from the seeds, dye from the petals and hull, face paint from dried petals and pollen. And, as we do today, the Native Americans used the oil for cooking oil and happily snacked on the roasted seeds.  What would a baseball game be without the dugout denizens spitting shells?

In Mexico, the Spanish invaders tried to suppress cultivation of the sunflower as it symbolized the native solar religion and native political power. The modern word in the Otomi language for sunflower translates to “big flower that looks at the sun god.”

Botanically, the sunflower is technically not a single flower, like the rose, but an amalgam, or “head” of about 1,000 florets, each in a spiral display across its dish-like face. E Pluribus Unum, “Out of many, one,” our nation’s motto, aptly describes the sunflower.  It’s the USA of the botanical world.

Most of all, it is the sunflower’s sunny personality that renders it such an apt icon for our country. Throughout our history, visitors to this country, including Tocqueville and Mrs. Trollope, have remarked on Americans’ cheerfulness and optimism. This upbeat outlook is a key ingredient in American exceptionalism. We don’t do “ennui” or “weltschmerz”: we even have to import the words.

The sunflower is dynamic, too. The heliocentric sunflower’s radiant face follows the sun’s course through the day, a fitting tribute to the origin of life on earth.  Helen Keller wrote, “Keep your face to the sunrise and you cannot see the shadow.  It’s what sunflowers do”.

Most other flowers, by contrast, are “nodding” in form (to avoid raindrops) and seem a bit abstracted.  Perhaps, like many European or Asian visitors, they feel out of place—especially on Independence Day.

And, oh, the sunflower’s large and happy face! Is this not the face of the American people? Bright, cheerful and full of wonder? See how it stands sturdy and tall, its flowering head a beacon of sunshine. Regard this radiant floral friend, aglow with American warmth and happiness.

Ladies and Gentleman, on this day of national celebration, let us all salute the sunflower, the Great American Flower. Let us give praise to this native species that gives us so much beauty, happiness and practical benefit. This land is your land. This flower is your flower.

The blessing of perennials is their re-growth every spring.  Essentially, they live for decades even if overwhelmed by the proverbial noxious weeds.  Eventually they die of stress or old age, but if well adapted, they take a great many years to do so, as if they were herbaceous versions of trees which, in a way, they are.

Immortality poses problems for the perennial nursery industry. One doesn’t sell the same perennial every year to the same person.  Ours is not a “repeat business” industry, so to speak, like annual transplants and seeds, which are sometimes purchased 2-3 times per year by the same buyer.

Moreover, if one wants to increase their population of hostas, daylilies, monarda or coreopsis, one can easily divide them after a few years.  Seed saving is considerably more difficult.

Therefore, “what’s new?” is an even more important question from perennial customers than from annual vegetable or flower growers.  Experienced and dedicated perennial gardeners are, in a word, fanatical, as in “fans”.  They understand the difference between a kitchen garden, cutting flower border or annual bed on the one hand, and a substantial, diverse and inherently interesting perennial garden on the other.  Different rules. Perennials resemble animals.  Unlike flowering and fruiting annuals, they have long lives, require some regular care and feeding, and evolve their personalities over time.  If you get a new one, it’s a big deal.  Much like tropical fish would be to an enthusiast:  here’s my aquarium, here’s my limit, more or less.  “Time to buy a new tank!”   I used to travel to Germany years ago and that’s exactly the scene:  hobby tropical fish collectors—mostly men—with walls of tanks in their homes filled with hundreds of genera and species of colorful exotic fish.

So it is with the “heronistas”—hardcore rare perennial and shrub collectors:  an endless cycle of expanding the garden by tearing out the lawn, as well as replacing tired or no-longer-interesting plants.

We are preparing our 2010 catalog with you in mind.  Please check back over the summer for news about our exciting introductions for next year.  We are reviewing hundreds of rare perennials, shrubs and trees in test gardens in zones 5, 6, 7 and 8, including our original research garden in Kingston, Washington and our expanded gardens at Fordhook Farms in Doylestown, Pennsylvania.  You may visit these last two locations during The Garden Conservancy Open Days on July 10 and 11, August 21 and 22, and September 25 and 26 at Fordhook, as well as on July 19, August 30 and October 4 at Kingston.  We hope you can join us at these exciting garden celebrations.

During high school I performed heavy chores on a large (9,000 acre) cattle ranch.  One year I fed horses, another year I milked cows, but sophomore year I fed pigs.  Our crew was called, naturally, “the pig feeders”.  It was fascinating and disagreeable only when the gas of rotting food scraps became overwhelming on warm days in late spring.  It was like a late 60s version of “Oklahoma”, which is saying something. . .

Later in life I pondered the matter of those kitchen scraps—why didn’t the pig herd have its own feed?  The horses, dairy and range cattle, poultry and lambs all had special meals.  Not the pigs.  They ate surplus food from the ranch, local schools and communities, literally scraped off the plates.  It would sit in old metal oil drums for a day or two and “cheese up”, as we called it—longer if we had visitors. The heavy barrels would accumulate ominously on a cement pad outside the kitchen door, where they’d stew in the sun.  Pig slop is the name, stinking is the game.  However, the pigs were crazy for it.

Being youngsters, we’d occasionally have crew fights with the milkers and horse feeders.  Outnumbered, we were still a potent force, since we had the ultimate weapons, being these indescribably hideous chunks of semi-solid slop, and a profoundly detached attitude.

“. . . the calm confidence of a Christian with four aces.”
                                                                        –Mark Twain 

There were only 3 of us and 10 or so milkers and 8 or so horse feeders, but, wisely, they usually picked on each other, the milkers using old curds and you-know-what, and the horse guys using rocks and you-know-what.  We were aliens.  “Provoke us at your peril”, was our unspoken message.  No one could even eat with us on workdays, for good reason.  However, soon the tension became unbearable for the others, and they came at us one day.  We won our only fight against the combined, massive force of the other crews, including the gonzo upperclassmen trash-haulers.  After a brief and colorful skirmish, they scattered before us. 

At one time—mid 20^th century—the rose fought with the marigold for the position of National U.S. Flower.  The rose won in the 1980s, due to its huge lobby which has since disappeared into the Colombian jungle.  Mr. David Burpee, our founder’s first-born, vigorously championed the marigold, even recruiting the great orator, gardener and Illinois native Senator Everett Dirksen, but they lost the public relations campaign by a narrow margin.  Reagan signed it into a sort of proclamation, rather than a law.  Especially in its hybrid, “tea” and cut-flower form, the rose is an unworthy national symbol for several reasons.

First, the well-ogled cultivars are all foreign from breeding to production to wholesale distribution.  Their feet don’t touch our native soil, while the lion’s share of their profits go abroad.  This is hardly appropriate for our national flower.  Second, the rose has already represented kings, queens, dukes, duchesses, lords, ladies, courts, religious orders and military units of nations of all stripes.  Strictly on patriotic grounds, the U.S. should have nothing to do with the rose as its national symbol.  Third, there are a great number of native plants that actually originated in our botanically barren land.

Choicest among these is the sunflower.  The Mexican-native marigold had its chance and lost.  Now it is time for the sunflower to step up and kick some serious rose butt.  Not only did the sunflower originate in eastern Colorado, it’s been an enormous blessing to the world economy, rivaling the rose in importance abroad, and blowing its petals off here in the U.S. The marigold is still a strikingly attractive, valuable garden plant, and a religious ceremonial plant in many parts of India. Yet it is dwarfed, in every way, by the sunflower.

While we’re at it, the tomato—pride of both Aztec and Yankee farmers—was supposed to be our native fruit, according to me, more than twenty years ago.  I was even going to create a commodity futures market for them.  I had meetings on Wall Street!  If they can do it to frozen orange juice and bacon, I thought, they can do it to ‘Big Boy’.  I was wrong.

Again, the apple—a cousin to the rose—became our national fruit, thanks to Ralph Waldo Emerson, who popularized the idea.  Although no declaration has ever been made, it’s been quite unnecessary.  “As American as banana pie” hardly cuts it, so to speak.

But now foreign apples, God bless them, are moving in for the kill.  It began with knocking ‘Jonathan’ off his perch.  By far the best-tasting apple, and as American as its pie, ‘Jonathan’ has had to move aside for “arriviste” yuppie foreigners like the overly sweet ‘Gala’.  It’s as if  ‘Jonathan’ were Mr. Chips, turning at the door to say goodbye to his loving throng of students, but there’s no one left.  No one’s crazy for ‘Jonathan’ anymore.

In any case, the tomato—a North American original—deserves to be the national fruit of the USA, every bit as the sunflower must take its rightful place as our national flower.

Let’s try again!

For six months President Obama has been struggling to save the economy, improve international relations and craft a universal health care plan. Last year’s Wall Street meltdown stunned the nation, conjuring up images of a worldwide depression.

Yet, oddly enough, there is a bright spot on the horizon, and, in the President’s case, it’s shining just outside his window. Last March, on the first day of spring, the Obamas planted a relatively small (990 square feet) kitchen garden, at the cost of $200 in seeds. They plan to use the energetic efforts of school children from the neighboring communities for the 8-10 month garden’s life. Research estimates put the average ratio of grocery store cost savings to the equivalent amount of vegetables and herbs produced by a home garden at 1:25. The Obama’s family of five—including Mrs. Obama’s mother—will invest $200 for a savings of $5,000.

Last winter I wrote that I thought the President and First Lady might start gardening in private at Camp David (please see Camp Obama), and then use this experience to help start a personal White House garden. However, I misread their interests in community development. (Although there are still communities around Camp David.) No doubt that I “misunderestimated” their commitment to helping folks—especially the less privileged in DC—battle the recession.

Yet, seriously, there are many other home garden yields as great as money saved, including physical health, a sense of psychological wellbeing, the pure joy of truly fresh flavors, and amusements as colorful as Disney World. Medical research has long established that regular gentle exercise—bending, stretching, pulling—not only prolongs, but also improves the quality of life. In this sense, a garden is a permanent personal trainer-in-residence. As First Lady Michelle Obama demonstrated vividly in her inaugural garden photograph, a determined smile and strong back are worth a thousand words. In addition, the psychic rewards of a life lived intimately with plants has been documented since time began. Gardens have been the birthplace of art, poetry, music, medicine and scientific discovery.

Finally, when compared to store bought produce that has been picked unripe and shipped hundreds of miles over several weeks, a vine-ripened tomato, freshly dug potato, and just picked muskmelon possess flavors that are without comparison. It is primarily for this last reason, which is the “unreason” of pure delight, that gardens have been the image and symbol of Paradise throughout history and in all cultures.

These compelling benefits may explain the surprising statistic that approximately one-third or 40 million out of 120 million American households, engage in some form of vegetable or herb gardening. Nevertheless, industry sales figures suggest that most of these households have gardens smaller than the new one at the White House. Yet, if every one of the 40MM gardeners in America convinces just two friends or neighbors to take up this phenomenally worthwhile hobby, there could be over 100MM household vegetable gardens in 2010.

I mentioned above that the Obama’s garden was modest in comparison to an experienced and enthusiastic home gardener’s production. I have faith that the White House garden will at least double in size by next year, thus reducing the White House grocery bill by $10,000. Imagine the average household creating a 2,000 square foot vegetable garden—about the same “footprint” as a small house or bungalow. Then imagine that smaller and larger families would also join in, either in their yards or local community gardens. Without too much effort, one hundred million households could save an average of $10,000 a year. This would have bailed out the US auto industry several times over. More cogent is the fact that a trillion dollars is the same figure being discussed as the total cost for our nation’s health care reform. Not a coincidence, in my opinion.

My depression-era parents grew up doing chores and walking to school several times a day. Occasionally, in their later years, they would bemoan the sudden appearance of school buses in every neighborhood of my hometown, a small and leafy suburb of Chicago. Even I walked back and forth to school twice a day for a total of four miles for six years. My folks would say, “They could save gas as well as keep the kids from going soft”. I wish they had lived to hear my proposal to the President of the United States for a nationwide movement to create The Trillion Dollar Garden.

A worldly friend gravely informs me luxury is dead. Now that Gucci purses and Hermes scarves are being snatched up by a larger public, he explains, they’ve lost their cachet. Luxury has gotten too democratic. It’s like the line about the restaurant: “Nobody goes there any more: it’s too crowded.”

The new luxury, he tells me is about being pampered, being taken care of. A higher level of service and convenience. Life at the push of a button. Love For Sale.

This, to me, sounds even more repellent than the old luxury. As Sam Goldwyn would say, “Include me out.”

The darkest moment in my life came recently after a relative gave me a 4-day weekend at a renowned spa. Friends told me I’d love it, “Be good to yourself,” they told me.

So I went. I had massages: shiatsu, hot rocks, cranial-sacral; I practiced yoga, meditated, my chakras were balanced, went through the motions of Tai-chi, did breathing exercises; I took exercise classes, strapped myself into Pilates machines; I had a facial, a pedicure, a manicure. I sweated in a sauna; I steeped in a swirling Jacuzzi. I dined on vegetarian cuisine presented like works of art; I sipped green tea. I thought I was dying.

“This Evening at 8:00 P.M.—Bloodletting In The Berkshire Room.”

Whenever I took a break from the sybaritic regime to lounge on the terrace, a velvet-voiced attendant would promptly appear to ask if there were anything I required. With envy I observed the landscaping crew raking and weeding in the blazing afternoon sun. My manicured hands were itching for a trowel.

After 48 hours of pampering, I could take no more. I was reminded of the “Twilight Zone” episode in which a man who has died arrives in the afterlife. He finds himself in a paradise where he can have whatever he wants. There are no obstacles to his pleasures. Finally, he tells a person in authority, he has had enough. He pleads to go to the “other place”. “This is the other place,” he is informed.

In desperation, I called an old friend who happened to live nearby. He was surprised to hear from me; it had been some years. And, he noted, it was 3 AM. “Rescue me,” I implored. He gently asked if I could survive the night. Heroically, if reluctantly, I agreed to wait until morning. Dawn really dawdled that day. What was the sun doing?

True to his word, my friend met me in the spa’s airy lobby at 9 on the dot. My bag was packed and at my side. He took in the scene. The clients lounging like pashas in their terrycloth robes. The whispering, hypervigilant staff. The steaming raku cups of green tea. The modish furniture’s soothing tones of celadon. The orchids serene in their vases.

He pointed to a tasteful taupe silk hanging with Chinese calligraphy. “You know what that says?” No, I did not. “It says, ‘Let’s get the hell out of here’ ”.

Paul Gauguin, the painter, noted in his journal, “Work is leisure.” I agree with Paul. And for me, the converse is also true, “Leisure is work.”

Everyone who gardens or cooks knows the feeling. At work in the garden or kitchen, my spirit is set free. What is discordant becomes harmonious. The out of kilter is balanced. Time? What is time?

Engaged in the task at hand, I feel not as if I am working, but being played like an instrument by a divine virtuoso. My senses are engaged by color, scent and flavor. I am in the blissful junction of recreation and re-creation. This is what it means to reap the fruits of one’s labors. Devotion is the New New Luxury.

Mankind has really been put in its place over the last 500 years.  Why only the other day, back in 1400, the sun orbited the earth; man was God’s consummate work of art; humans were masters of themselves and the domain God provided for them. 

Our secular fall from grace began with Copernicus, who dislodged the world from its celestial catbird seat.  Later, Darwin established that man, far from being the animal kingdom’s pièce de résistance, was a bit like a baboon in sports clothes.  Then Mendel documented the laws of inheritance—so much for free will—and Dr. Freud subordinated what was then left of our minds to unseemly drives over which we have little control.

In the 20th century, technology—the tools that connected us to the earth, the skies and ourselves—assumed a size and complexity too big to fit into what was left, finally, of our brains.  In the 1890s, an intelligent layman could achieve a rudimentary grasp of the scope of current scientific thought. Perhaps no one – scientist or not – fathoms the full scope of technology today.

According to scientist and futurist Raymond Kurzweil, the coming technological-evolutionary quantum leap, known as the Singularity, will erase the line between human beings and technology.  He maintains technology’s exponential progress will result in part-human, part-machine nanobots, with infinitely greater brain power and life-spans extending to immortality—a long life indeed. 

Kurzweil envisions the time, if a body part fails, one need only grab its replacement from the pantry and snap it in place.  Already, lawyers are busy devising the constitutional framework for a post-human future, in view of the shifting nature of what comprises a human being. The classic paradox comes to mind: once the knife’s blade and handle are each replaced several times, is it still the same knife? Once all your parts have been replaced a few times, are you still you?
 
Now a segment of the Green movement presents a fresh challenge to mankind’s place within nature.  Humans, the thinking goes, are one species among the many, a life form co-existing with others, our rights commensurate with those of tics, snail darters, mosquitoes and coral reefs. 

The new environmentalist thinking occupies that treacherous terrain between rationality and romanticism.  It’s highly logical, too, an all-encompassing equation where everything is equivalent to everything else—Communism at a cellular level.

The premise glows with the innocence we forsook when Adam larcenously appropriated an apple from its rightful owner, the tree.  We have yet to get back on speaking terms with the serpent, our unindicted coconspirator.

This dangerous new unnatural naturalism sees the planet as a realm of halcyon purity.  Conversely, mankind is portrayed as a cancer on the planet.  Welcome to secular subhumanism.

The Earth-Firsters are not fools. There are choice elements in their deranged philosophy that merit consideration; such is the essence of temptation. However, their failure is that they undermine their cause with acts of brutality. Theodore Kacinski, the UnaBomber, a PhD with kindred neo-Luddite views, was one such activist run amok, responsible for dozens of injuries and four deaths—a case study of how, contaminated with extreme emotion, logic becomes toxic. 

Evo-lutionaries and animal rights activists feel justified in spiking trees, burning down housing developments, vandalizing laboratories and threatening the lives of researchers and their families. By all means save the Red-Cockaded Woodpecker, but not at the cost of human lives, no matter how few. That way lies madness.

One activist author posits that the planet can support only one billion people–a number surely including the writer, his friends and extended family.  Another activist advocates saving the world through euthanasia, abortion, suicide and sodomy.  However, the truly repugnant part of this story is that these are both tenured professors in wealthy universities. 

In Switzerland, proposed legislation protects the rights of plants. As you roam the Swiss mountains, do not violate the rights of the wildflowers by picking them: an undercover gnome might arrest you. Internationally, the Greener-than-thou brigade scorns hybrid seeds—the 20th century achievement that vastly increased the world’s food supply and rescued billions from starvation—forgetting that nature has been creating hybrids since the beginning of time.

A Yale professor maintains that owning pets is a kind of species colonialism, an exploitative master-subject relationship.  The word “pet” is now viewed as pejorative; if you must hold a creature hostage, call it your “animal companion.”  He explains that when we gaze upon the beauty of a man-made landscape, we fail to apprehend it is, first of all, an exercise in power.

The political views of the Eco-elitists defy easy categorization, if not also comprehension.  Their anti-business stance might mark them as liberals, while their hard-edged fundamentalist views about nature and brittle nostalgia for a lost Peaceable Kingdom are surely conservative.

Perhaps they are little more than one of nature’s newest 21st century hybrids: Progressive-Reactionaries. 
 

After steadily climbing sales for about twenty years—roughly the age of Heronswood Nursery—large sculptured garden beds are taking a rest this season, due to the recession. The public views ornamental gardening as expensive. They’re wrong.

On the contrary, the beauty of flowers has a profoundly positive effect on people—much greater than the expense of the investment in seeds, plants and bulbs. Just as a small vase of flowers utterly transforms a dinner table (try the “on and off” trick with the bud vase at a fine restaurant sometime), a garden brings a home, literally, to life. Furthermore, the beauty of flowers relieves depression, which is why we take them to sick people in the hospital. What’s the price of joy?

A very impressive front and backyard flower garden with beds, borders and a productive cutting patch can be had for a few hundred dollars, and a month’s worth of time spent learning one of the world’s longest lasting and most memorable hobbies. Consider this: The President and First Lady spent over $210.00 on about 60 packets of vegetable and herb seed for a 1,000 square foot vegetable garden. This shows how much you can do on a relatively modest plot of land. (Just wait until Mrs. Obama gets the flower bug.)

Or you may spend several hundred dollars on a couple of new cell phones, or a pair of satellite radios with six months free service, or four box seats to a couple of major league baseball games. However, the same amount will enable you to fully garden your property, and thus raise your home’s value. I estimate a $450.00 investment in ornamental plants and shrubs would raise your home’s value by a few thousand dollars, at least, or about a 1000% return on investment.

Despite these attractive qualities, sales of ornamental gardening seeds and plants are either down or flat, with the exception of cut flowers. Indeed, classic cuts such as zinnia, marigold and nasturtium are up slightly, while sunflowers are almost as high as vegetables—15-20% so far, with only half the sowing season over. No wonder: Most easy-to-grow cuts are cheap (especially from direct-sown seed), carefree and immensely satisfying. Veteran gardeners often keep a cut flower border on the side of their vegetable patch.

Similarly, in the fashion industry, The Great Depression is noted to have given a boost to the then recently hatched lipstick industry. Like candy and movies, it was something inexpensive that lifted women’s spirits. Cut flowers grown at home rival lipstick in the “feel good” department—most of the customers of cut flower seeds and plants at Burpee and The Cook’s Garden are female.

Grow dozens of bouquets of zinnias in your yard this summer for the cost of a few dollars of seed and then tell me I’m wrong. Or, if you live in a sunny housing development and can’t afford a new tree for your bare yard, grow a shady and cool “forest” of giant sunflowers for the kids or grandkids to play in. They reach 10-12 feet with stems as strong, solid and safe as tree trunks. It’s great fun. Plus, since the giant sunflower is an annual plant, it can be sown next year in a new part of the yard, like a “mobile forest”.

Believe me, trees aren’t inexpensive—I just bought a few for Fordhook and, afterwards, thought seriously about going into the tree business. However, the grower was excellent; I decided to stick to my knitting. I expect the recession might last another two years. I hope not, but I suggest planning for it.

“Ora pacem, para bellum.”
(”Pray for peace, prepare for war.”)

Meanwhile, here are some wonderful, easy-to-grow perennial and annual ornamental garden flowers—for cuts, beds or gardens—new for 2008/2009 and still available.

Kurume Corona Celosia		Paradiso Mix Echinacea
Fireworks Gomphrena		Verbascum Southern Charm Hybrid
Coleus Chocolate Mint		Coleus Picture Perfect Salmon Pink
Zinnia Highlight Hybrid		Dahlia Showtime
Marigold FireBall		Picture Perfect Collection
Dahlia Dinner Plate Collection		Deluxe Lisianthus Rose Cut Collection
Achillea Cherries Jubilee		Astilbe Astary Mix
Astrantia Moulin Rouge		Baptisia Twilight Prairie Blues
Chrysanthemum ‘Sheffield Pink’		Lonicera Major Wheeler
Phlox David’s Lavender		Ultimate Phlox Collection
Salvia Hot Lips		Stokesia Color Wheel
Culinary Classics Herb Collection

All of the above—131 plants—would cost $430, and change your home into a thing more glorious than it is now.

Spectacular Japanese Fountain Grass (Hakonechloa macra ‘Aureola’), indeed, but it would be so much less without the Bent Grass (Agrostis stolonifera), an Asian native beloved in the Pacific Northwest and considered a weed in the Atlantic Northeast.  Photograph taken at Heronswood’s original test and display gardens in Kingston.

Get rid of your lawn?  Plant it with flowers and vegetables?  I’m for that!  But not at the expense of my Brother Lawn.  Rather, I wish to add to his beauty, as well as his many years of service.  Thus, “In Defense of Lawns”.

In a New York Times Op/Ed Classic from 1991 and reprinted last month to demonstrate its relevance and timeliness, the best-selling food and environment writer Michael Pollan says:

“We Americans have traditionally looked on our front lawns as nothing less than an institution of democracy.  Beginning in the 19th century, at the urging of such landscape designer-reformers as Frederick Law Olmsted and Andrew Jackson Downing, we took down our old-world walls and hedges (which they had declared to be “selfish” and “undemocratic”) and spread an uninterrupted green carpet of turf grass across our yards, down our streets, along our highways and, by and by, across the entire continent.”

Really?

My guess is most folks have never heard of Olmsted and Downing or, if so, only in passing.  Pollan’s provenance of lawns is news to 99.9% of Americans.  I doubt highly that anyone conceives of his lawn as the “institution of democracy”.  People take pride in their lawns because they are handsome and functional, providing places for children to play, athletic fields, a buffer between the house and the street, a fire break in the western half of the country and a place you can accidentally drop a plate of BBQ ribs or spill a glass of wine without care.  Lawns are fun and look pretty—I believe that is how they are “looked on”.  Their elegance and beauty stir our imaginations rather than politicize our identities.

Pollan continues:

“The democratic symbolism of the lawn may be appealing, but it carries an absurd and, today, unsupportable environmental price tag.  In our quest for the perfect lawn, we waste vast quantities of water and energy, human as well as petrochemical . . .

But the deeper problem with the American lawn, and the reason I believe the White House lawn must go, is less chemical than metaphysical.  The lawn is a symbol of everything that’s wrong with our relationship to the land.  Lawns require pampering because we ask them to thrive where they do not belong.”

No kidding?

As I say, I don’t believe that Americans are aware that their lawns and playing fields constitute an “institution of democracy”. Their conception of their lawns is not stuck in the 1950s, when the apparently traumatic incident took place that Pollan describes in which his “free spirit” father, after being pressured by his neighbors to cut his lawn, mowed only his initials into the two foot high grass.

Over the past 40 years, awareness of the effects of air and water pollution on the quality of our lives has grown.  In response to this, local, state and federal governments have set guidelines and passed laws to limit or ban many pollutants.  For example, phosphates have largely been eliminated from lawn fertilizers.  In addition, Americans have long ago come to appreciate water as a limited (and increasingly expensive) resource—something the rest of the world has never forgotten.  Many alternatives to the “traditional lawn” have sprouted up over the past 30 years.  They involve the use of native species that require less input of time (mowing), chemicals (fertilizers and herbicides, both organic and non-organic) and irrigation.  Currently, there are many alternatives to the so-called “traditional lawn” that are diverse as well as regionally adapted.

Perhaps, over the last 10 years, Pollan and others such as the late Sarah Stein helped to raise folks’ awareness of these alternatives.  However, political correctness doesn’t earn anyone, in my book, the right to tear up the White House lawn.

But what, after all, is this “traditional lawn”?

Pollan continues:

“Turf grasses are not native to America, yet we have insisted on spreading them from the Chesapeake watershed to the deserts of California without the slightest regard for local geography.”

This is a straw man as well as untrue.  The non-native species that are used in lawns aren’t invasive ones that hitched a ride in a cargo container a couple of decades ago, as he implies by lumping them in with controversial or truly destructive invasive species.

For example, we use Perennial Rye and Meadow Fescue at Fordhook.  They originated mainly in Northern Europe and are almost perfect for our Atlantic maritime area, fifty miles inland.  This classic mixture can be found in domestic usage from 30° N latitude at high elevations to 62° N—an extraordinary range.

Another example is Kentucky bluegrass, the quintessential turf grass. It is native to most of Europe, Northern Asia and the mountains of North Africa.  The climates of these regions are similar to the cool humid parts of the U.S. where Kentucky bluegrass has been extensively planted.  It is particularly well suited to many parts of North America.  The early European colonists brought all these grasses to this country over 200 years ago where they’ve become thoroughly adapted.  Such a horticultural success should be celebrated rather than scorned.  What other “foreigners” should we stop growing?  Lettuce?  Carrots?  Beets?  Melons?  Send the cow and the horse packing?  “Back to Eurasia with you!”

Furthermore, there is also the issue of cool- vs. warm-season grasses:

Cool-season grasses are those that develop most rapidly during spring and early summer when cool nights follow warm days.  They are dormant during the hottest parts of summer and begin to grow again in late summer and early fall.  These grasses include timothy, orchard grass, and brome grass—all introduced species—as well as native species such as Canada wild rye, redtop, and June grass.  They do well in the northeast and Midwest but poorly in hotter, drier climates. 

Warm-season grasses are “bunch grasses” that develop most rapidly during summer when warm nights follow hot days.  They include native prairie species such as big bluestem, little bluestem, Indian grass, and switch grass.

Pollan would have us believe that the lawns grown in Connecticut are the same as those grown in southern California.  He tells us that all lawn grasses are homologous across the country.  This is both false and misleading.

The untrue part of  Pollan’s invasive statement is that he fails to mention a large number of lawn and turf or sod grasses that are, in fact, native.  Buffalo grass is one of these (Buchloe dactyloides).  Researchers have developed many cultivars at the University of Nebraska that are suitable for golf courses and home lawns throughout the U.S.  A warm-season grass, it grows well and even forms sod from Alberta, Canada, to northern Mexico.  Furthermore, it is drought-resistant, thus conservative in its use of water.

It’s clear that Pollan doesn’t like lawns, to say the least.  This accounts for his not looking at them very closely.  They differ quite a bit, as do roadside forests of deciduous trees.  In any case, if he doesn’t enjoy lawns and the chores involved with their maintenance, he’s free to live in an apartment, to replace his lawn with a flower,
vegetable or perennial garden.  (Please do!)

However, in other places in his books and essays, Pollan repeatedly suggests that lawns represent a dysfunctional relationship between humankind and nature, and symbolize environmental neglect or, worse, destruction.  Again, this is untrue.

For example, lawns do a good job of sequestering carbon.  A well-kept lawn is not only a pleasure, but also an excellent “carbon sink”.  The photosynthetic process—sunlight turning carbon dioxide into sugar, cellulose and other plant constituents—fixes or “sinks” carbon into grasses, lawns, gardens and the soils that support them.  If anything, a lawn is an ecological flag—even more so, ironically, than a vegetable garden.  A lawn resists soil degradation much better than a veggie patch, which gets torn up each year, decomposing and thus releasing the plant carbons from the soil by exposing roots and debris to microbes.  No more carbon sink—the carbon goes back into the atmosphere.*

While an annual flower or vegetable garden fixes less carbon than the lawn, it is also true that a recreation of a prairie grass meadow, with big and little blue-stems, coneflowers and other long-lived native perennial plants, will fix either more or the equal of a typical well-maintained lawn.  So, certainly, a meadow is as good as a lawn for the environment—maybe even better.  But to suggest that lawns are bad for the environment is nonsense.

Indeed, recent research suggests that lawns are not merely carbon sinks but also “pollen traps”.  This is yet another advantage of a lawn over a backyard prairie.**  In his article, “The Pollen-trapping Power Of A Lawn”, T.L. Ogren states that an average, well-kept lawn removes “far more pollen than it will ever produce itself” as well as “hundreds of millions” of grains from surrounding trees and shrubs, by snaring them in its brushy surface.  Then, after rains and lawn sprinklings, the pollen is pushed down into the lawn even further, making it almost impossible to dry out and become air-borne again.
 
The most obvious problem with home prairie grasslands is, to me, critters—from mice, squirrels and chipmunks to skunks and snakes. And how will you know a trespasser isn’t an opossum or raccoon?  There’s also the issue of insects.  I, for one, love them.  However, I prefer them in the wild or the vegetable and flower garden—not on my porch.  For example, wasps and yellow jackets commonly nest in meadow soils.  Ridding a recreated tall grass meadow of them would be, literally, a pain in the neck.

One example of the prejudice against wild grasses: As I was recovering from being nudged awake, one of several times, during the movie Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, I noticed a reference in the story to the “grasses”—being tall species—of China’s “wild west”.  They symbolized the rude, crude and uncivilized.  Not so absurd, then, that the Chinese adore lawn and turf grasses and reckon that they represent the finer things in life.

The chord “Crouching” touches is probably universal.  Meadow or pasture grass, whence our lawn species originate, is one of the first “biophilic” organisms (to use Edward O. Wilson’s term)—the first life forms we lived with.  No pasture, no cattle.  No cattle, no meat, milk, leather, etc.  Little wonder green grass is associated with heaven in religious art, as in “Sheep May Safely Graze” by J. S. Bach.  Trace your pets, too, back to meadow grass, man’s first best friend.  Indeed, it was likely a key factor in domesticating us.  It certainly makes sense:  Poacae, the universal grass family, was found where we were.

Also, there’s the aesthetic interest.  While I adore the reclaimed farms and restored prairies of my native Midwest, I’ve become attached to lawns, especially large ones. The landscape architect Arthur Edwin Bye was the Rembrandt of the sweeping lawn. Once you see this type of beauty, you never forget it.

Finally, much as I love gardens, fields of crops and formal city parks, I’m most fond of golf courses.  In my childhood they were mysterious—even a bit scary.  They came as close to a dragon’s lair as I wanted to get.  But now I adore them.  Each is unique and some are dazzling.  All do at least a fair job of revealing the essence of the surrounding landscape or cityscape.  And, except for those requiring carts, you always get a good walk.  Some in the Southwest are dreamily beautiful, like something out of a Star Trek scene.  Marty Sanchez Links de Santa Fe is a perfect example, and public to boot.

Perhaps, as his father was stuck in the 1950s, Pollan is a bit lost in a 1970s view of chemical lawns.  Pity, because he’s an effective spokesman when he is not making erroneous statements in his Romantic, quasi-Wendell Berry mode.  I rather wish he’d adopt a Wallace Beery mode and tumble around with his kids on the White House lawn. 

*Specifically, tillage decreases soil organic carbon levels over time.  Lawns of long standing, like that at the White House, are highly productive and are effective sinks of atmospheric carbon.  That is atmospheric carbon (CO2) is incorporated into the roots and leaves of grasses.  In a study of golf courses (see Argon. J. 94:930-935), where the oldest was 45 yr old and the newest 1.5 yr old, non linear regression analysis of compiled historic data demonstrated that total C sequestration continued for up to 31 yr in fairways and 45 yr in putting greens.  The most rapid increase occurred during the first 25 to 30 yr after turf grass establishment, at average rates approaching 0.9 and 1.0 t ha-1  yr-1 for fairways and putting greens, respectively.  Note that the most actively managed areas (putting greens) sequester the most carbon.

**Thomas Leo Ogren is the author of Allergy-Free Gardening.  He can be reached at his website,

Lawn As Margin (Fordhook Farm)

Lawn As Partner (Fordhook Farm)

Easter reminded me of another miracle—eggs.  Let me explain.  There may be no food more effective on a cost basis.  Here in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, a dozen eggs goes for about $3.00, or 25 cents each, and there are grocery stores everywhere you turn.  If you have two a day, you’re spending 50 cents.  Ground beef is about $4.00 a pound, which a family of four will go through in a day, or $1.00 per person.  Therefore, ground beef—while tastier—is twice as expensive.  This is one of the secrets of the restaurant industry.  If you get a breakfast trade going, you have a “gusher”.

Personally, I think the taste and versatility of eggs are even more miraculous than the price.  I don’t need to flavor them at all if they’re soft-boiled, and just a tiny bit if they’re fried, scrambled or “shirred” with milk as the English do.

Unlike ground beef, a dozen eggs will keep a couple of weeks with little effect on flavor.  You can’t get any fresh meat to last as long.

Also, an old Englishman friend of the family introduced me to “eggie” when I was a child.  It’s about anything in the refrigerator, sautéed and then mixed with a couple of eggs.  After a holiday, such as Thanksgiving, this can become a week-long feast.

So, along with vegetables in my much touted 1:25 ratio, some of the basic foods are still quite a bargain if you get the hang of it.  Milk remains at the near-miraculous level of about $2.50 a gallon, which is a godsend to a young family of four.