Garden Rant

Movie "No Impact Man" is Saved by the Wife

You may remember the No Impact Man blog, by a Manhattan-dwelling writer taking on the daunting task of living, with his reluctant wife and happy 2-year-old, as close to off-the-grid as possible for a year.  That means giving up toilet paper, air conditioning and the refrigerator, among other horrors.  Well, naturally their year of sacrifice and self-promotion was filmed by not just hoards of TV crews but by a documentary movie-maker, and I caught the result at the Silver Docs film festival.

Now the Man himself, who dreamed up this stunt/gimmick/ brilliant, transformative project (depending on your perspective) is frankly a tad insufferable at times but lucky for him, his wife is funny and grounded - in a shopaholic, Starbucks-addicted sort of way.  At the end of the year, after being an incredibly good sport about the project, she declares that the worm composting HAS TO GO.  (I shudder to imagine their hot apartment filled with fruit flies from the Man's inadequately researched vermicomposting operation - flies that could have been prevented.)  But the project did change her in positive ways, charmingly evidenced by her discovery of farmers' markets and - at the age of 39 - cooking!  (We hear her say with a look of wonder on her face that she'd never cooked dinner before.)  I love this woman. 

Oh, and the aging hippie who teaches the Man to grow food is also good fun.

Treehugger's review is a good one.

ADDENDUM: I forgot to weigh in on the merits of the project! Seems to me it was a huge success in bringing attention to the issues - in an entertaining way, no less - and the point isn't whether they did it perfectly.
And sure, he's writing a book about it - he's a freelance writer - and I hope he sells lots. Their apartment is so tiny I don't know how they can stand it.

Introducing my official Rant product tester

THANKS FOR PLAYING, EVERYONE: Claire Splan is the randomly chosen winner

Proxies come in handy sometimes. At first I loved the idea of receiving equipment to test from companies like Troy-Bilt. I’d never done it before and, besides, it was free stuff. But while I know just what to do with freebie concert tickets and bottles of organic gin, I must admit, power equipment in my tiny garden can be just a bit out of place. So for this review of Troy-Bilt’s cordless electric trimmer, I brought in a ringer, Buffalo Spree writer Catherine Berlin, shown here. Catherine regularly tests gadgets for the magazine, and actually has a lawn. Here are her thoughts on the trimmer:

Some time ago, somebody figured out that a pole with a bit of monofilament had the potential to be a tool for work, and not just a symbol of indolence. (Could it be that a widowed-feeling, weekend-fisherman’s wife came up with the power edger?) Since that “Aha!” moment, trimmers have become nearly as ubiquitous as lawnmowers. There is a surprising amount of variety among the trimmers out there. Gas gave way to electric, leading to cordless. Troy-Bilt’s entry into the field enlists ergonomic design as its selling point: the handle telescopes, so you can adjust it to a length that fits your reach and your spine’s comfort zone, from 42 inches long up to 56 inches. This may not seem to be the most exciting feature, until you consider that this means that the whole family can share in edging duties. This edger does not have a wire guide or an extra battery pack for quick switch outs, but then again, the 12” cutting swath is easy to control, the ion battery is designed to last longer before recharges, and the trimmer’s price point is an acceptable compromise.

We also appreciate the automatic line release that advances the trimmer line as needed when the trigger is pulled (because we don’t have a clue how to deal with those lines), and speaking of triggers, seriously. Once you get the feel of pulling that trigger to trim grass or edge around sidewalk and stones, you are, well, hooked for life. Perfect for a fun-filled afternoon that includes work along fences, trees, patios, and sidewalks.

Shortcomings? It didn't have a guide, which I don't use because I have an eye and I like to be able to angle the device for special edging. Some people think its 12 inch cutting range too small, but for my backyard, it is plenty big and as with all tools, I can make two swaths with something small; if the unit is too large, I can't make a swath at all. So I'd rather go small and be more precise. It's not perfect, but it is a nice tool for a manageable piece of property.—C.B.

Carol/May Dreams Gardens and Dee/Red Dirt Ramblings have also tested this.

Want a trimmer of your own? Troy-Bilt will send you one; just leave a comment about trimming—or about getting other people to do your work—and I’ll draw from them. Please leave the comments before 9 p.m. EST.

Garden Writing Cliches I'd Like to Ban

"Who says organic gardens can't be beautiful?"

No one.  No one has ever said that. Don't create a false sense of defiance to make your piece seem more innovative.

Any others you'd like to nominate?

Multiply dog-eared Fine Gardening says "Renew me!"

Like so many Americans, I'm tightening my belt, cutting expenses where I can, and wondering if I really need all the magazines I subscribe to.  Garden Design is surely a good candidate for dropping, since it takes me 5-10 minutes to "read" it, but unfortunately I fell for their deceptive renewal campaign and am paid up through about 2016.  No lie.

And it won't be Fine Gardening, either, especially since I noticed this about my copy of the May issue: 6 dog-ears marking stories I want to come back to and read in full.  Like:

• Stunning photos attracting me to read "Who says a kitchen garden can't be beautiful"?
• "Sweetly scented annuals."
• "Pruning for conifers" I couldn't possibly resist.  Essential for a conifer-lover like me, still scared to death to ruin them with my pruners.
• "Mix it up with coleus."  I've lusted after coleus for years; time to give them a serious try.
• Stephanie Cohen's plant pick - 'Bunny Blue' carex, which is touted as a good pachysandra substitute.  Stephanie knows her plants and looks adorable in her sun hat.
• "Making sense of specialty fertilizer" is something I need to be able to do.

Okay, so maybe I'll cut back on - well, probably nothing gardening-related after all.    

Parade Magazine botches water-saving advice

Did y'all see the feature "5 Easy Tips to Save Money - and Energy" in yesterday's Parade? (It's America's largest circulation magazine, ya know, or I wouldn't be picking on them.)  The first tip is titled "Be Wise With Your Water" and begins:

"Reduce your lawn area by planting flowers and you'll lower your water bills," says Sid Davis, author of Your Eco-Friendly Home.  "Flowers need less hydration than grass.  Putting in gravel or pathways also will do the trick."

Uh, flowers?  Any old flowers?  Many nongardeners would, I suggest, grab a few flats of annuals and think they'll be saving on water, thanks to this misguided advice.  And lawn CAN be allowed to go brown in the summer - which would be much better advice.  Most people I know never water their lawn, period, so switching to "flowers" would cause them to use more water.

My first thought upon reading this was: "Who is this Sid Davis and what does he know about plants?", but when I read the contents page of his book I found LOTS on the subject, so now I'm suspecting the fault lies with another general-interest writer/editor not getting it.  Or did Sid really say "flowers"?  Sid, if you're out there, speak up!

Print is dead. Long live print!

In this post we are featuring guest ranter Patricia Craft, managing editor of Horticulture magazine. Her rant strikes a familiar chord with me; as a fellow magazine editor, I struggle with balancing online and print priorities—especially since my heart—and our revenues—are still located in the printed page.—Elizabeth

Take your dire warnings of the death of print and leave me be. There is nothing I love so much as coming home to find the current issue of my favorite magazine in my mailbox. I climb the three flights of stairs to my condo with eagerness, knowing I’ll soon be curled up on my big comfy couch with friends who will be dispensing advice and inspiration in liberal, beautifully photographed doses. And I’ll get to see what the fashion fool says I should or shouldn’t wear this month—how did he get that gig?

I love a magazine that entertains and educates me, and that month after month is reliable but manages to surprise me, too. As the managing editor of Horticulture, I understand how much time, blood, sweat, and tears go into planning, editing, designing, proofing and getting every single issue to print. It’s our goal to have our readers respond just the way I do to that certain other magazine when the new Horticulture lands in their mailboxes.

Yeah, yeah, I know they say print is dead and that online is where it’s at today (and that the trend is toward even more web-centered publishing). There is, indeed, a shift toward serving our customers’ additional needs online—we try to do it every day at Horticulture. Along with putting out a print issue, we keep our Website (hortmag.com) full of up-to-the-minute info, we share additional information that we couldn’t fit into the print edition with links to Dig Deeper online, we’ve partnered with the irreverent and wonderful Amanda Thomsen, who blogs on our site, we produce CDs and DVDs full of gardening advice culled from the pages of the magazine (we have more than 100 years of gardening archives from which to tap), we host webinars, we manage a Facebook page and you’ll find us on Twitter @cohorts. I know first-hand that publishing no longer means simply putting print on paper—now we’re a media company.

I subscribe to the I-blog-therefore-I-am theory in my personal life, spend ridiculous amounts of time on Facebook and am trying to tweet (@pattycraft) more often. But no matter how much I love staying connected with thousands of people online, and surfing the blogosphere with my morning cup of coffee, my finest hours are still spent on that comfy couch, with a beloved if endangered species: my favorite magazine.

Long live print!

Garden coach publishes beginning veg-growing book

Veg-gardening coach Jean Ann Van Krevelen wanted to spread the word, but rather than shopping for a publisher decided to take matters into her own hands.  She's well positioned to do so, what with her other coaching duties - in online communications, social networking, all the new media stuff I'm falling behind on as I type.  (My apologies to everyone following me on Twitter and getting bupkis.)

The result?  Her very own book now available in a digital version on Amazon and a print-on-demand version here. 

Now as a beginner myself, I'm in no position to judge the content, but I DO appreciate the newbie-level guidance and especially preparation suggestions - i.e. how to cook the stuff.  Yeah, I need help there, too.  But I'll turn the review over to others who know more than me, including our friend Debra Prinzing.

(You may remember that Jean Ann's the one who rescued me from the chore of updating our Garden Coach Directory by taking it Wiki using Wet Paint.  What a relief.)

Enjoy Nature in your Home Outside

I'm more of a library-goer than a book-buyer and it's a rare gardening book that I'd buy, but 30 bucks for this hunk of inspiration and design how-to seems like a bargain to me.  That's because Julie Moir Messervy is a top residential designer with 30 years experience and seems to have gotten it right - and by "right" I mean transforming people's empty yards into what she calls "pleasure grounds".

See, even more exciting to me than getting folks to lay off the Miracle-Gro is helping them enjoy being outdoors, inspiring them to stroll their garden every day and connect with nature.  Julie's all about that, and makes this too-true observation:

"There's little that's pleasurable about the typical American yard....Why do we spend the bulk of our resources on the inside of our house, while settling for so little on the outside?" 

She touts old-fashioned pleasures like backyard swings and chaise longues and benches (which she insists have comfortable backs, unlike those utterly backless ones that HGTV designers regularly install).  Oh, and market umbrellas (which I'm forever recommending as a low-cost shade solution - from this source.)

Julie even suggests finding a nice spot - like inside an arbor - for a "tryst".  That's because with pleasure grounds, you never know.

Then there's Julie's personal style, which is all about the plants, and pleasing the eye. "No matter what kind of garden I'm designing, my perpetual quest is to find the beautiful line."  So the book is filled with stunning photos of gardens we can actually emulate.  As a design tutorial it's opened my eyes to possibilities way beyond my standard "mixed borders surrounding open space" mentality that's served me well but gee, there are so many other good choices.  Like creating a few "comfort zones" with paths connecting them.  The photos in the "Making the Most of your Front Yard" section are positively revelatory.

It's this kind of wise instruction+visual feast that's missing on gardening websites, including my own, which may be why gardening books can still compete with the Internet.


Thanks to the American Horticultural Society for turning me on to Julie's style and this awesome book by featuring them in a free-to-members webinar.  Home Outside was published by The Taunton Press in 2009.  Lower photo by Randy O'Rourke. 

What's That You Say? Garden Books Thriving?

This just in from Publishers Weekly:  garden books are actually doing well this year.  A few highlights from their report:

What might be termed the “old variety” of gardening books hurt the category's sales, argues Plain White Press publisher Julie Trelstad. “The flood of coffee-table gardening books imported from Europe nearly killed gardening publishing, not only because of their expense but they were not applicable to U.S. gardening conditions.”

and this on veg gardening:

According to Baldwin at Chelsea Green, “This is the most significant category of books for us, accounting for 32% of our net sales in the last twelve months versus 22% in the previous twelve months.” She adds that net sales grew by an “astounding” 56% in the same period, while the entire list was up 5.4%. The publisher's bestseller has been Eliot Coleman's Four Season Harvest, which is up 91% in the last twelve months and selling almost three times as well as it did three years ago.

Good news for Timber, too:

Timber Press has had similar success. Publisher Neal Maillet disputes the naysayers, noting that the house's garden-book sales were up 12% overall in 2008.

and of course:

A question that all publishers must deal with when releasing gardening reference titles during a recession is: why would anyone spend their hard-earned dollars on a reference book when much of the content can be found online? Rick Rinehart, publisher at Taylor Trade Publishing, has a few theories. “Book buyers are an elite group. And those who are gardening enthusiasts are an elite within an elite. They want to see their subject from many angles. Books do this.”

Book cover feedback needed (badly)

Remember when we had a survey/book-giveaway and helped choose photos for Sustainable Gardening for Florida by frequent commenter Ginny Stibolt?  Well, it's in the design phase now and this is the cover design proposed by the publisher.  Ginny sent it along to see what we think.  So, what DO we think?  Me, I really, really don't like that graphic.

Shout-out to the Washington Post

It's gardening day at the Washington Post, which - God love 'em - is STILL publishing four gardening columns every week, all good to excellent.  For editorial policy I prefer the New York Times but for garden reporting nobody beats my home town paper.

Today there's a HUGE spread about "sprucing up your yard" on a budget, filled with real-gardening suggestions from real-gardener and friend of Rant Adrian Higgins. 

Then, in a surprise addition to the familiar gardening columns, there's an article about Sharing Backyards DC called Backyard Buds: Pairing the Landless with Those with  Soil to Share.  I LOVE this story about two young women who are determined to make gardens happen. 

And oh btw, BLOGS MATTER!  That's the take-away message from the article about backyard buds, ya know.  It reports that business picked up and more gardener wannabees are finding land to grow on because a local blog mentioned Sharing Backyards.  And you never know - it could have been my own post  about it.  So bloggers, if there's a Sharing Backyards in your city, talk it up!

Photo of Higgins in his garden by Len Spoden for the Washington Post.  I hope they don't mind my using it - I'm trying to send readers to the articles, after all.

What's That You Say? We Can Get Information From Our Computers?

What an odd little story from the Associated Press.  Gardeners today don't have to have heavy old stacks of books sitting around!  Why, all they have to do nowadays is bookmark a website on their computer! You know what's even more amazing?  These so-called Web sites are free!

The ultimate irony? Four of the eight links don't actually get you to the right place. Maybe next year gardeners will learn about hyperlinks!  Why, you just click on the underlined word and....

The winner—and by the way, none of you were right

Jodi/Blooming Writer is the randomly-chosen winner of the Nichols compilation; I think she'll enjoy it. The "contest" part of this was really unwinnable. You'll be surprised by the correct answers.

…it reminds me of a clump of laurels on which someone has hung the weekly washing referred to DATURA.

… as embarrassing as a middle-aged lady standing on the steps of a provincial town hall, disguised as Cleopatra for the annual fancy dress ball at the Rotary Club referred to PAMPAS GRASS (in the middle of a lawn).

…gaunt, gawky, and deliberately deformed by man, with its tortured, amputated limb sticking out in all directions, demanding pity rather than praise referred to HYBRID TEA ROSES (badly pruned).

Congratulations, Jodi, and thanks to all for playing.

We'll have more giveaways to cheer everyone up during these hard economic times.

A little book of zingers, bon mots, and other amusing snippets of garden persiflage

Beverley Nichols really knows how to insult a plant. How about this:

…it reminds me of a clump of laurels on which someone has hung the weekly washing.

Or this:

… as embarrassing as a middle-aged lady standing on the steps of a provincial town hall, disguised as Cleopatra for the annual fancy dress ball at the Rotary Club.

Or this:

…gaunt, gawky, and deliberately deformed by man, with its tortured, amputated limb sticking out in all directions, demanding pity rather than praise.

I have deliberately not included the names of the plants being humiliated, not because I’m protecting them, but because I’d like to hear your best guesses as to which they might be. Yes. It’s a contest, and the prize is a new collection of Nichols’s best: Rhapsody in Green: The Garden Wit and Wisdom of Beverley Nichols (Timber Press). Nichols (1898–1983) was a British journalist, essayist, and novelist who may now be best known for his garden writing, most of it personal books about his many gardens (urban and rural). If you have all of his books already, I suppose you don’t need this. But on the other hand, it’s fun to flip through and enjoy excerpts of the most memorable bits from such books as Down the Garden Path, Garden Open Today, the Merry Hall trilogy, and Green Grows the City, among others. It’s impossible to randomly open it without finding something that will make you smile, like this:

In a mad moment I once made a Polythene pond. And the reason I developed a ferce hatred of it before it was even finished can be summed up in two words—damp underwear.

Nichols’s travails with water features are among his funniest writing. And I have a polythene pond (I think).

So, for the giveway, simply make your guess as to ONE of the plants he might be referring to in the excerpts above (you can do all three if you like), and I will draw from them tomorrow (Thursday) at 9 a.m. EST. You need not be correct, obviously. But good for you if you can guess. Even googling wouldn't be that easy.

What Garden Writers Could Learn from Thriller Writers

A good friend of mine is one of the founding members of the International Thriller Writers association.  I have watched with fascination and amazement as this organization has grown and flourished over the last several years.  What started as an idea passed around by e-mail between a few colleagues has grown into an extraordinary engine for book promotion and community-building.  So why can't garden writers do the same?

Let's get this caveat out of the way:  the founding members of this organization are wealthy because (a) their books sell to millions of adoring readers, and (b) even some of the lesser-known authors were doctors or lawyers or CEOs to begin with.  So they had some resources.  With that in mind, consider how much of this could still be done on a modest budget.

Here are just a few examples of what they've done:

1. Launched a very accessible and newsy website that is actually a glorified blog.  That's right, the whole thing is built on Movable Type, which is more robust than what we use, TypePad, but still affordable and user-friendly.
2. Used that website to promote new releases by members; promote author events; gather e-mail addresses of fans for their newsletter, and much more.
3. Founded an annual event called Thillerfest that serves as an opportunity for members to network, talk shop, and so on, but also lets aspiring thriller writers take workshops from the pros, AND encourages fans to come and mingle with their favorite authors.  One big event that serves writers, aspiring writers, and fans.  What a concept.
4. Begun a tradition of hosting a cocktail party for editors, agents, media, etc. at the annual book industry trade show BookExpo.  
5. Launched innovative promotions like the Thriller anthology edited by James Patterson (a very successful money-maker for the organization), and a smart new sweepstakes promotion that gives away a library of 150 signed thrillers in exchange for sign-ups for the newsletter.

What's so cool about this is that the authors are doing it themselves, rather than waiting for their publishers to do it for them.  And publishers could not have pulled off something of this scale, anyway:  publishers are unlikely to pool their resources and work together to promote thrillers directly to readers like this, but ITW authors have no problem working together.

So what would an ITW for garden writers look like? 

More Media News

The Minneapolis Star-Tribune is filing for bankruptcy. Another robust garden section in peril.  Any garden writers out that way with news, send it our way.

The news also came this week that environmental/eco-lifestyle magazine Plenty, and National Geographic's Green Guide, are no longer. AdAge reports that a new 'green' magazine, Organic Beauty, is set to launch soon.  Should a so-called green magazine even exist in print?  Discuss.

And now, in the face of all this bad media news, I give you this bright spot:  a wonderful piece in Grower Talks magazine about the marketing strategies behind the 'Endless Summer' hydrangea. This is exactly the kind of behind-the-scenes stuff that I find fascinating.  It's not an article about how to plant a hydrangea or how to prune a hydrangea or how to feed a hydrangea or what to plant next to a hydrangea.  It's about how a nursery in Minnesota found an interesting hydrangea in the backyard of an employee and spent a million dollars marketing it in the first year.  They had a million plants for sale, so they spent a dollar marketing each plant--and they still do.  The newest release, Twist-n-Shout, will be backed up by $800,000 in cable television advertising and consumer ads of $1.5 million. Advertising a plant on TV?  What a concept!  Tell me more!

I love it that industry magazines like Grower Talks run these kind of stories, and I wish consumer garden magazines would find a way to follow suit.  I mean, it's an interesting, gee-whiz kind of story about what goes into "the making of" a popular plant, and what I like about it is that it gets at this larger idea that gardeners are interested in the world of horticulture, a world that includes science, money, politics, marketing, and international intrigue. It's the kind of story you'd see in any number of other consumer/enthusiast magazines, from Wired to Wine Spectator to Gourmet.  So--Grower Talks!  Good work!

Speaking of Newspapers

A nice piece in the Houston Chronicle on seed catalogs, in which she interviews both George Ball of Burpee and Jere Gettle of Baker Creek.  Check it out here. 

And now for this distressing news: according to its own news report, The Seattle Post-Intelligencer will be sold or shut down in 60 days. Those of you who don't get to Seattle much may not realize what a remarkable thing it is that the city has two lively daily newspapers--and that BOTH of them have great garden coverage.  At the Seattle P-I we have:

Marty Wingate writing her weekly 'Grounded Gardener' column
Marianne Binetti taking weekly Q&As
Ann Lovejoy's weekly 'Green Gardening' column on organics
Master gardener Chris Smith on edibles
Beloved fun guy Ciscoe Morris on a little bit of everything.

Plus features, plant of the week, plenty of stuff online, and so on.

THEN, over at the Seattle Times, we've got Valerie Easton, supplemented by various McClatchy and AP stories, and probably lots of other stuff I don't even know about from this distance.

But look at the Seattle P-I's roster.  That's five garden columnists in one newspaper, every week! 

If any Friends of Rant in Seattle have insight into what's going to shake out in terms of garden coverage, drop us a line.

Layoffs at Meredith

The New York Times reports that Meredith, publisher of Better Homes & Gardens and other garden pubs, is laying off 250 employees and closing Country Home magazine. If anybody's got the scoop on whether any garden writers got the axe, drop us a line.

And here's an interesting sidenote.  The Times story says that those 250 employees represent 7% of their workforce. Our GardenRant math department tell us that this means that Meredith must employ over 3500 people.  At first I thought, that can't be right.  But the article says that revenue is $370 million, which represents just over $100K in revenue per employee.  (Not that everybody at Meredith would make that much; it's just a handy ratio to figure.)

Or here's another figure.  Combined circulation of their 13 magazines and many special interest publications is 30 million. That works out to one reader for every twelve dollars in revenue. (not counting audiences for their books, websites, etc, but still...)

I have no conclusions to draw.  It's just idle commentary from the sidelines as the media churns through whatever it's churning through. Interesting times....

A book is great, but make sure it’s one that will get USED

Three men I'd never leave on the shelf

This year, I’ve found myself giving things like feeders, solar lighting, and other backyard accessories that promote sustainability in the domestic landscape. I still think books are a good gift, but they need to be books that the recipient really needs, or that carry a message other gardening books have not included. Of all the books we’ve reviewed, previewed, or just mentioned on Garden Rant over the past year or so, there are 4 that I find essential for any twenty-first century gardener.

Doug Tallamy’s Bringing Nature Home still fascinates me with its extraordinary grasp of how insects matter and the difference between providing food and providing habitat. I do not take it as a rigid polemic for installing an all-native garden (nothing is ever that black and white for me), but it inspires me to do whatever I can to spread the word about alternatives to the lawn/foundation planting monoculture I see throughout Western New York’s suburbs. This book affects me more as an editor of a regional home/garden magazine than it does me as a lawn-free urban patio gardener—but the information in it should be at all gardeners’ fingertips.

A good plant encyclopedia is a must, and unfortunately they do need to be updated. Plant names change, and what we know about them changes. New cultivars are always being introduced. I love Allan Armitages’s Herbaceous Perennial Plants, Third Edition. It’s opinionated—thus, fun to read—discusses more native plants than previously, and if there is anyone who has his finger on the pulse of the plant industry, it is Armitage. Great book, great gift.

Finally, if you or your giftee does not have Jeff Gillman’s two slim but fascinating exposes about how all the crazy things we do in our gardens affect us and our plants, then now is the time. I revere The Truth About Garden Remedies and The Truth About Organic Gardening equally, and I think they should be bought as a set.

I recommend buying these directly from their publishers, Timber(Gillman, Tallamy) and Stipes(Armitage), or from your local bookseller, if they have them.

And that’s it. You’ll hear no more talk about holidays, parties, or gifts from me. As long as I can find ten quails by Saturday and my liver makes it through the month without too much damage, I’ll be fine.

The Fine Gardening Survey: Make Your Voice Heard

The good people at Fine Gardening magazine have put out a survey about your interest in vegetable/edible gardening. There's a question about their fine-but-no-longer-published Kitchen Gardener magazine, and one about what blogs you read.  (Hmmm.)

Anyway.  Take the survey here, and thanks to Fine Gardening for letting us spread the word. They're blogging now too; check out their blog here.