Garden Rant

A Girl's First Power Tool

I never once went "vroom vroom" as a kid. I hate mechanical noise, think the internal combustion engine is the worst thing that's ever happened on the planet, and believe power tools make a culture soft and allow Asian nations to beat us on science and math tests.

But last summer, I just gave up on the ancient reel mower I'd been using for the past five years. It was given to me by a friend who works for Environmental Defense. He's spending his career trying to curb greenhouse gas emissions, but NO WAY was he using such a thing.

It made mowing the lawn a sweaty, difficult job and then made me feel foolish and taken advantage of to boot.  It wouldn't even cut a seed stalk in the grass, let alone a dandelion stem.  I'd get done mowing and have to go out with scissors to finish the job. So I tried to have its blades sharpened last summer and spent a day being sent from one machine shop to another, all over Saratoga County, vainly trying to find someone willing to do the job. That was it for me--basta!

So I bought the Black & Decker corded electric model above for about $230. The model with a battery was about $400, and since I'm only mowing a small urban yard within cord distance of my garage, it works fine.  Yeah, I do have to flip the cord over myself all the time, though I think it you were less spatially retarded than I am, you could figure out a way to keep the cord behind the mower most of the time.

But basically, I am deeply grateful to Black & Decker. I love the fact that the machine is on only when you lift a lever to the handle. Stop squeezing the handle, and it's off. That means that when I stop every ten seconds to get pine cones out of the lawn up ahead, I don't have to listen to an idling machine while I pitch them into my flower beds. I love the fact that it no longer takes an hour to mow my bit of lawn, it takes ten minutes. And while I have zero interest in the lawn, it is the frame for the garden, and I feel about an unmowed lawn the same way I used to feel back when I colored my hair and my roots were showing.

Of course, Black & Decker hasn't solved every problem with my mangy-looking lawn--like the fact that lawn grasses don't want to grow in such extremely sandy and acidic soil.  Or the fact that the homeowner refuses to give something as boring as a lawn a drop of supplementary water or a lick of fertilizer. Someday, the mower will be replaced...with bluestone. Or the homeowner will be replaced with somebody richer and more fastidious. Until then, great piece of equipment.

Money back, replacement, or tough luck?

Did it survive, did it die, or is it yet to emerge? I don’t know about you, but every spring morning I make my tour of the front, side, and back: Ah, finally, the blooms-on-old-wood macrophylla is showing some green! Thank god, only one of the fancy heucheras I spent a fortune on died! What do you know, the ground cover the roofers buried under debris came back!

There are always some casualties. I dug up a bounteous Carefree Beauty rose bush (above, prior to the assassination) and planted it in a new spot late in the season and it didn’t make it. It was a bonehead move; I’m still kicking myself.

This is all standard angst-of-the-gardener stuff. In fact, I kind of want a few things to die to make room for new purchases. But sometimes, the losses are tougher to accept. Take my friend. We’ll call her C. She bought a young red maple, a smoke bush, and two other ornamental shrubs I don’t remember the name of from a local nursery last fall. Dead, dead, dead, and dead. This particular nursery does not guarantee its large plants; i.e., no money back, or even a replacement. Return policies varies from business to business. I think many of the landscape services around here will replace failed shrubs and such for a couple years, while a few garden centers also offer some sort of guarantee, often with stipulations.

There was a really long thread on Gardenweb about this; some nursery-owners spoke of “serial returners.” Others explained that they dealt with individual problems on a case-by-case basis. According to one of our local garden writers, plant consumers should not expect returns. She notes: I hope staff reminded you about watering, encouraged compost amendments, gave you planting information. But keeping them alive is then your job. Plants aren’t furniture.

Actually, I think my friend’s problem may have been fall planting. In spite of all the received wisdom to the contrary—everybody here says plant in the fall—I think fall planting can be tough in Buffalo. Most of the perennials I’ve lost were planted late in the season or in the fall. (And of course, we have the idiotic case of the fall-transplanted rose bush.)

It’s an interesting question. Should we expect money-back guarantees or replacements? I can see where strong cases can be made on both the consumer and vendor side. Just like my dead Carefree Beauty, it's all thorns.

Gardener? Watch Your Mouth!

Saxon Holt reports on Gardening Gone Wild about his visit  to the California Pack Trials, a strangely-named event that is all about seeing the new plants that the trade is rolling out to the market.  Don't miss his photos, and check out his second post on the subject, too. And yes, Saxon, we are definitely interested in seeing "the nearly soft porn photo of two young women embracing with geranium necklaces."  If you're not gonna post it on your site, send it over here. 

This is the line that really got my attention:

The industry is not catering to the gardener who wants a few sixpacks of a carefully chosen annuals. The industry is selling color to homeowners who want to accessorize their living space. One marketing person was heard to tell a retail nurseryman that they risk insulting their customer by calling them a gardener.

Yeah, don't you dare.  They're not gardeners; they're consumers.  Of...uh...lifestyle accessories.

This is what we learned

Everyone agrees that almost all—if not all—commercially-produced sprayers and wands meant to be used with garden hoses SUCK.

Nat West says a no-name from Fred Meyer (whatever that is) has lasted a long time.

Stuart says his from POPE (an Australian company) is great.

Chris C., Grey, and Annie all use their thumbs.

Dirtchick thinks we should start a movement. I’m fine with that as long as the name of the movement does not contain the words “hose” or “spray.”

SJ says the Wisconsin-based company DRAMM makes a great wand.

My husband came home last night with two new sprayers from Home Depot.

And another one bites the dust

Why does every sprayer and wand ever made, including the 50 or so I've gone through, suck to the ultimate degree of suckdom?

Take Back Your Resin Fairies, I Do Not Like Them If You Please

Would you allow your lilies to rub shoulders with this riffraff? 

I'm from New Jersey, so I like ornament. Thank goodness, this doesn't take the form of long painted fingernails or too, too much gold leaf in my house. But I do happen to think every garden needs a few intensely artificial accents.

Unfortunately--or as my husband would say, fortunately--my quest for just the right piece of weirdness for my garden generally comes up empty for three reasons:

1.  The few chances I've had in the last fifteen years to buy something really great, a moment of cheapness has taken hold.

For example, I once went into an antiques store in New Jersey, where the antiques run to a lot of obnoxious marquetry and ormolu on faux-French furniture of recent vintage. But in this junky store, they had a giant cast iron hen at least three feet tall and really impressive in 3-D.  Probably a relic from some long-defunct egg business, where it sat at the end of the driveway and caused passing cars to screech to a halt. It was incredible. It was $350. I quailed and have been sorry ever since.

Then there was that woman who thought she could run a business importing container-loads of fabulous composite stone urns from England and selling them in the obscure countryside of Washington County, NY. Those urns were enormous, some of them six feet high on their pedestals, some in an amazing red color, some with fabulous relief on a diagonal climb around them. Needless to say, she was soon running a half-off, going-out-of-business sale. The $800 one I wanted was reduced to mere madness. I was too cheap and have cried myself to sleep ever since.

I'm also not Elizabeth Licata and not hanging out with a lot of sculptors, a serious oversight, I know--because I would gladly put a piece of strange art in my yard, if any could be had for $200 or less. 

2.  The garden ornament offered commercially makes me think that a lot of businesspeople assume that if you want to garden, you must be simple-minded and possibly well into your second childhood.

In Lowe's recently, the ornament on offer seemed oddly religious.  Dinky foam crosses, dinky foam saints, dinky foam angels, because after all, who gardens except for fundamentalists--and people who hear voices when no one's there except the yard art?

Scotts Miracle Gro and Your Lawn

Garden columnist Debra Smith writes to me after listening to a teleconference sponsored by the Garden Writers Association and Scotts Miracle Gro, "After sitting in on the teleconference, I feel a little dirty, but not in a good I-just-shoveled-six-cubic-yards-of-compost way."

She goes on to say this on her blog:

The participants on this panel, which included a Scotts VP of sustainability, had not a word to say about runoff from chemical treatment of lawns into the groundwater supply or air pollution from lawn mowers....And no one mentioned grass alternatives....It’s no surprise that a lawn and garden company wants us to keep growing grass and feeding it with loads of fertilizers. The carefully-controlled teleconference struck me as a rather pathetic pep rally for grass.

Well!  They don't call her Mudracker for nothing! Scotts does donate to any number of GWA initiatives, which no doubt provides all kinds of opportunities for these little educational seminars for garden writers in need of a story idea.

So this got me looking around at Scott's new website, which includes forums and sort-of-but-not-really blogs.  (Why do these big companies think people want them to host their blogs?)  So far it seems to be infrequently used and not exactly a hub of horticultural discussion, but hey, it lets the suits tell either other that they're doing something 'virtual' and 'viral' that will appeal to the youngsters.  I got no further than a post on the forum from a user who thought his/her posts had been deleted.  Someone named KipatScotts replied:

Nobody deleted it, UN. We don't have the power to delete it. This is the same software run on many newspaper sites, like USAToday, and those liberal, 1st amendment junkies don't take too kindly to that. ; ) I studied with 'em in college, so I know that of which I speak/type.

(By 'that,' we think he means the alleged deleting of posts.)  Yeah, I knew some of those liberals back in college, too.  Shudder.  Glad those days are over. 

That was it for me--what started out as a post about Scotts lawn care advice is coming to an abrupt end as I get creeped out by their website.  Why is it that a big company, with all that money, still manages to be so profoundly uncool?  Oh, wait.  I may have answered my own question.

Escape from Sunnyville

I have never been so terrified.

Mega-retailer Lowe's has launched its 'Welcome Back Spring' marketing campaign, complete with a Second Life wanna-be site promoting a virtual world called Sunnyville. The idea is to get people excited about the arrival of spring, and to translate that excitement into the purchase of gas grills, power tools, and bedding annuals, in spite of the flagging economy.  Who cares if you're going into foreclosure?  The bank's not  going to show up and change the locks for a couple more months.  Might as well get out and  enjoy that backyard while you can!

Just click 'Visit Sunnyville' and you'll find yourself transported to a horticultural paradise complete with radiantly green lawns, shiny new power tools, and helpful neighbors who can give you handy tips and recommend products.

Sunnyville's resident gardener is 'Iris' (not her real name), a vaguely ethnic wise woman who delivers lines like "Gardening isn't just about planting something and adding water.  It's about nurturing a living being" with an almost orgasmic roll of her eyes.  What ecstasy!  Her own garden consists of a big green lawn, a little vegetable patch planted with greens (one can hardly wait to find out if it transitions into tomatoes later in the season) and a flower bed island planted with pink tulips, purple hyacinths, and a mysterious unidentifiable yellow flower.

Each of the characters in Sunnyville (Moe the power tool guy, Gus the grill guy, and Iris the garden lady, along with a dog whose virtual backyard I refuse to visit) greet you with a friendly line like, 'Howdy, neighbor!  I was just about to fire up this cool grill I got at Lowe's!  Glad you dropped by.  Hey.  You look like you want to ask me something.  Go ahead!'  Then they return to a state of suspended animation and a little menu appears above their head while they wait for you to begin the interactive part of this experience.

Power tools become my friend

As Amy has noted previously, the Ranters have become … not inundated, but certainly in steady receipt of a trickle of offers from various garden-related vendors. When Troy-Bilt contacted us, none of the others could use anything, but, as the perpetual newbie of the group, I found that some small, electric implements might come in handy on the GWI property.

So, here I am with an electric leaf blower/vacuum/shredder. I was so relieved to find out that I wasn’t the only garden blogger taking freebies to test and write about; during our Austin meet-up I found that several others had received similar equipment. Indeed, Carol/May Dreams Gardens and I will be comparing and contrasting cultivators at a future date.

The thing is, I am the perfect person to test this stuff. If I can make something work, anyone can. Take this leaf thingie. Who would need a leaf thingie in the spring, you may ask. Answer: A person who did nothing about their leaves in the fall, and whose leaves have now become a solid, half baked/half-soggy mat covering everything, including some spring bulbs desperately trying to struggle through to the sun. I’m thinking a small leaf vacuum that can suck this mess up might be well worth recommending. And did I mention that there is also a good amount of roof debris (mainly small pieces of wood) from a late fall tear-off?

Before

It was easy to put together, and required no tools like screwdrivers: a plus. I was disconcerted to find that it needed to be plugged in all the time, but that turned out not to be a big deal. You twist on the vacuum attachments, sling the bag over your shoulder and let ’er rip. At first I thought it was clogging, but I found that if you shake the bag once in a while to clear the intake nozzle, it’s fine. I was surprised at how much roof debris it happily ate up, as well as making relatively quick work of the chunks of leaf matting. The bag is not huge, so it does have to be emptied quite often. And it’s noisy—not for early morning use.

After

So that’s it. I liked this because it sucked away the leaves without also ripping out my ground cover (I have no grass), as rakes always and invariably do, no matter how gingerly I apply them. It also created 3 bags of nicely shredded leaves that I can now throw into my new composter.

My complaint? It was still work. I felt very tired afterwards. When Troy-Bilt makes the leaf-processing robot or the magic leaf-disappearing garden wand, I will be happy—HAPPY—to test them out. Just give me a call.

I feel bad

Well, this should destroy whatever minimal shreds of confidence any of you may have had in my horticultural expertise. Last Saturday, I spent four hours at our local garden show, Plantasia, not because it’s such a fantastic show (it’s fine), but because my magazine is a sponsor and we have a booth there.

So here I am, hawking magazine subscriptions, enticing suc—I mean, potential happy owners of a subscription to Buffalo Spree with our great introductory offer of ten issues, medical resource guide, performing arts guide, holiday shopping guide, AND this fabulous free gift:

Eight (8) Orchid Glad bulbs in a Small Natural Cotton Bag and Two-Color Tag. Give the perfect green gift: Flowering bulbs in environmentally friendly packaging, an all-natural, unbleached cotton bag with cord drawstrings, customized with a two-color hanging tag. This gift will inspire customers, prospects and employees to go green, and remind them of your organization’s commitment to the environment every year when their plants grow, and flowers bloom! Cotton bag dimensions: 3” x 4”

I hadn’t bothered checking these out beforehand, so I’m babbling away talking about how great they are and how they will probably naturalize and all this crap—I think I had them confused with ipheion, which does spread (it’s practically a weed). Well, as you all probably knew from the instant you saw the image, these bulbs are gladiolus callianthus “Murielae,” hardy only in zones 7 and above, so they’re unlikely to naturalize in any garden around here.

Of course, Western Promotions did not bother to include this information when they sold these to our circulation director. Most bulb promotions are pretty much the same: no botanical information, no culture requirements, no nothing. Just a pretty name like “Orchid Glad,” “Lavender Mountain Lily,” Fairy Lily,” and “Queen Fabiola,” with the instructions “plant in the spring.”

It's not that terrible. The bulbs were free, pretty, and they’ll bloom one season anyway. I kept a couple bags for myself.