- Author: Lowell Cooper
As with any new adventure, I experience a combination of nervousness and excitement – in equal amounts. To continue from my last blog, after taking down the two large but unmannerly trees I had been growing for many years, I was faced with a large empty space. I noticed that it didn't take long for my feelings to change about the whole situation. At first I was in mourning. Missing the trees really captured me: being annoyed at my neighbors for wanting their view back, and resenting having to live with such bare brown dirt after the lushness of large and prosperous trees. After a couple of weeks I decided that there had to be a better solution than selling our house or burning down our neighbors. I began to see the open expanse as a blank horticultural canvas.
My wife and I scoured the neighborhood and the town to see what was appealing in other landscapes and would fit ours. Flowering trees, bushes, succulents of all sizes, big bushes, etc., etc. We finally honed in on where to start – the first paint stroke on the blank canvas: crepe myrtle, dynamite red. By formal name: Lagerstroemia indica 'Dynamite'. Our local nursery endorsed our choice. Once we had a starting place, the necessary infra-structure made sense: we had to empty the space of remaining plants which all of a sudden didn't fit the plan any more. It was necessary to install a drip system for irrigation, rework the rocky surface to even out the slope, cover the ground with a weed blocker and mulching chips. All of a sudden a whole bunch of steps seemed clear. Though I lost sleep about all these steps getting done, it really gave me substantial empathy for what a farmer must go through on fresh ground. However, as a very small-time player in this horticultural venture, I was relieved that food for my dinner table was not at risk. One step at a time. The major learning for me has been the resources available and how imperfect they are. For instance, the zone mapping has USDA specs and Sunset specs. They both hone into my general neighborhood, but don't inform me of how my microclimate will affect the crepe myrtle – wind, soil and heat. There is plenty of advice about how large the hole has to be to accommodate the trees, but with clay and rocks to get through, it seemed to me the proper implements might include t.n.t., not just a shovel. And the disconnect goes also to fertilizer and amount of water. Even at my local nursery which I trust to not be totally driven by profit, the caveat is ‘it depends'. So, when it comes right down to it, there good suggestions abound but they have to be tempered with experience with the plant itself.
So, it seems to me that every planting experience holds adventure at many levels with the unknown. Judgment and attentiveness, I discover, must be combined with willingness to make changes in the initial formulas. Planting for pleasure requires a scientific attitude even more than pure science. Using the available resources and knowledge and then being willing to have them proven wrong under the variable (and at timers unforgiving) outdoor environment.