Botany Buddy

It has been a long time coming, much longer than this post, but we are starting to see the pieces of our online tools come to life.  I hearken back to the journey of creating the original iPhone app and remember the emotional roller coaster it was.  Despite all the memories relived and the stress of dealing with the developers and Apple, when it finally hit the store, it was like seeing a Magnolia bloom in spring oozing with pollen.  The people we have met as a result have been like the friends you make at a garden party or your trusted allies at the local nursery.  They have pollinated our flower and created the fruit that will produce that cluster of bright red seeds for the Cardinals to harvest and spread the flowers all around.

When we started the iPhone app and worked with the developer, we realized quickly that there was nothing natural about the technology at all, no matter how smooth they make the interface look.  We realized that to continue growing and for technology to work with nature it must act like nature, be built like nature and grow like nature.  The pieces and parts must be able to work together to grow the ecosystem as a whole.  Unfortunately since 1992, when the USDA started building the first database, technology for horticulture has been moving the wrong direction.  The medium has been used to store, organize, and dictate what nature is rather than grow the information like the plant kingdom, has grown itself.  As a result the information is fractured, isolated and has not been allowed to grow and become the knowledge it wants to become. 

We experienced the stifling complexities of this paradox before the iPhone app was ever complete, but were limited by the technology of the device.  As users started giving us feedback, we saw the limited use of the iPhone to ATT and the iPhone platform create the same separations as traditional horticulture information on other platforms.  Nature is made up of symbiotic relationships that are not limited by species let alone by the brand of your computer or phone, and we realized to meet the needs of gardeners, growers, and the horticulture industry as a whole we had use the whole world as our ecosystem, just like nature does.  So just as we ran from the USDA and turned to Linnaeus as the inspiration for our data structure, we have moved from the native applications to a web based platform that can grow as freely as the Internet has itself.

Gardens are about growing… plants, places, people, minds, and relationships.  For growth to happen you have to learn, which requires listening, communicating, adapting, and experiencing.  Using data structures and technological devices that prevent and stifle this growth, have kept the entire industry from being able to grow technologically as well as the plants in their gardens grow themselves.  When it comes to reference sources for horticulture, rather than treating them as a growing medium, technology has acted more like a pre emergent or pair of pruners to control the growth of information.  In the end it has prevented or limited the experiential activities necessary to grow and has turned gardening on the web to a collection on limitless libraries and opinions.  Other than prolific and wonderful discussions in social media little has been done to grow the industry as a whole through the use of the information.

Some who will read this have seen what we are up to in our cyber-greenhouse, and have watched us toiling in the soil, and even seen some of the seeds germinate.  Finally the seeds have all germinated, their roots are reaching the edge of the pots and are ready to be potted up.  Like those first liners going to the wholesale market, that is who we have been working with first to bring this to market, and for some of those larger nurseries who do it all, we are planting our flowers in their greenhouses as well.  Soon it will be spreading nation, continent and world-wide just like those seeds on the Magnolia.

Like nature itself, the technology is proving that it can grow symbiotically with all these different groups regardless of their individual environments and species.  It is working, just like all of those original experiments that came from Linnaeus and those little bitty peas.  It is working because instead of fighting and controlling nature we worked with it, embraced it and emulated it.  We are able to grow all of these different tools for all these different people, because like nature we have one life force driving everything we do for everyone in our garden, and have used nature’s structural models to make it all work together.

We are not ready to release our individual or education tools yet, if you sign up for news on our main site we will keep you posted.  If you are in the nursery or landscape industry and looking for ways to better communicate with, or education your clients, staff, and end users feel free to contact us, and I’ll gladly give you a tour or the cyber-greenhouse and show you what we are growing for you.

In the last three weeks I have been visited by about thirty friends from distant places dating back over thirty years.   Some of them I don’t even remember not knowing and even though I hadn’t seen some in five to ten years it seemed as though a single day had not passed.  Most have married or should have been allowed to, and some we here to see one get married.  About the only thing that was different was some of us were a little softer physically and mentally.  However none of us were any softer in our passions.  When you get a group of artists, musicians, chefs, designers, and gardeners together you know you are in for aesthetic overload.  I have to thank Michael and Anita for choosing Asheville as the location for their special day.  There couldn’t have been anyplace more appropriate for such a reunion.

It was definitely a spiritual time and this in particular is a spiritual time of year for me.  Lately I have been completely enthralled in my writing for the update, but I have also been rediscovering my camera.  Two days a week I have been spending in the field capturing what has probably been the best blooming season I have ever encountered.  This has allowed me to capture from bud to bloom to leaf and to seed hundreds of varieties of plants.  In the process it has reconnected me to the people who introduced me to some of the plants, and the people I introduced the plants to.  This has been a true rediscovery of myself and I can never thank enough the people that have allowed this happen, just like I can never thank enough the people who first made these introductions to me.  There is an old saying that it is bad luck to thank someone for giving you a plant, you just give them one back and give one to someone else.  Gardening is without a doubt about giving and bringing people together rather than thanking them and going on your way.  Things and people always seem to keep coming around like the seasons in a garden.

This spring has also allowed me to reconnect with people I have never met.  In my excursions  I have visited private and public gardens as well as nature herself.  I have even just cruised neighborhoods scoping out that one missing specimen.  Twenty years ago this is how I first honed my craft with mentors and friends like Duane Hoover of the Kaufmann Gardens and so many others.  However no one made me better understand my craft better than those I studied that came before me.  Tommy Church, George Kessler, Frank Lloyd Wright and John Brookes are some of my favorites, but nothing influenced me more than the biography of Fredrick Law Olmsted.  I had read books about his work, but this was the first one that was really about him.  It is no garden book.  It reads more like a Western novel about someone who eventually found his was in a garden, and he was always the first to admit that he was not a Landscape Architect, just a lover of the arts and the land.  As a product of the liberal arts myself, I always related to him the most.

This spring I have been spending two days a week scouring the grounds of The Biltmore Estate, camera in hand and brain in the clouds.  Like the kid I was learning my craft in the parks of Kessler, and finding my way in the gardens I was creating, it is like Olmsted and I are connecting again after all these years and no time has passed.  Along the way I continue to meet new people as they find me crawling out from under a plant, trying to get that perfect picture of the bark.  Every once in awhile when I look beyond the picturesque gardens and soak in the pastoral, I realize Olmsted put that there too and I continue to meet new plants.  There is no one more responsible for the introduction of some the worst invasive species to these mountains than Mr. Olmsted, but I have not doubt he loved the land as much as I do.

I am sure that if he knew then what we know now, he would have moved from defining sustainability as related to money, to creating things that are sustainable without it.  He saw the plants as a palet to fulfill the visions of his designs, strong in Architecture, but grounded in the patterns of nature.  They were like the books on a shelf or the art on a wall and he brought a greater appreciation of them to all of us.  He saw sustainability as a plan to care for the land buy using it to generate the money to pay for the art.  I am sure if he were alive today, he would see that the plants need to take care of the land so we don’t have to plunder it to pay for the gardens we create.  In the end, he made us more aware.  He just wasn’t aware of the consequences of his actions, but without them we would not have come to the awareness we have today.

As I near submission of the next update, I will not jinx things and thank Mr. Olmsted, Oregon State University or the University of Arizona, but I will be sure and give them some plants back.  Most importantly, I’ll be sure and share them with others, because plants and people definitely go together.  In the end, without growing together we will never learn together.

As yesterday would have been the 201st birthday of Charles Darwin I found it overly ironic that all I saw on the news was a barrage of people declaring that global warming was a farce because it had snowed outside. I have to admit that I am starting to find the snows I have missed from my youth a bit annoying now. However it hasn’t effected me enough to start denying reality and the evidence of real science.  I may be delirious from cabin fever and the total loss of routine from an ad-hoc school schedule, but it is not about to lead to the closing of this American mind.

Had it not been for the steady drumbeat of an old friend’s facebook status, Chuck-D Day might have slipped by me completely.  This friend is someone I new well in my youth.  For many years as children we spent every daylight hour walking up an down our town’s railroad tracks and creeks collecting turtles, snakes, frogs, salamanders and any other little critter we could get to ride home in our pockets.  Of course we evolved over time, and got smart enough to carry buckets and boxes.  At one point we even moved up to traps and converted a neighbor’s walk in aviary into an all out zoo.  This particular friend is now a Herpetologist and was leading a read-a-thon in which they finished the Origin of Species in approximately 18 hours.  (I can only assume this was faster than the last time.) As I watched the devolution of our politicians minds on TV his constant updates assured me that somewhere someone was actually evolving.

As for my own celebration, it was going on in my head all day.  As I spent all day listening to the talking heads knowing full well they were incapable of thinking,  I was thinking about how I became most aware of global warming through the spread of invasive species.   Over the years I wasn’t always aware of either problem, it took a move to a different climate to make me see how differently things react under the slightest change.  It became even more evident when I began working across the 3 distinct zones from North Georgia to Virgina that I could see how differently species adapt and react to different ecosystems.  Hybrid Burning Bush and Barberry that for years no one would have imagined spreading are not only growing from seed, but they are adapting and moving into climates that normally would have been to cold for their seed to survive.

When I hear people talk of climate chance, I always hear about it’s effect on water, and people.  How the oceans will flood the cities, rivers will run dry, and other factors that we see directly related to our needs as humans is all that seems to matter.  The only time I hear plants discussed is in how trees can offset carbon so we can create more.  Unfortunately I hear more talk about whether the change exists in the first place, than what we can to do prevent it.  However, more than fighting of global warming plants can help us see and understand it.

In some respects plants are the antithesis of humans.  Plants adapt and get stronger every year and can live several of our lifetimes, but they create a new generation and pass on those traits every year.  When winters were consistent invasive species were easier to keep in check.  The annual minimum temperatures used to keep the non-native seeds in check year after year.  As winters have gradually warmed, those seeds have have adapted and become more cold tolerant as those few extra degrees have allowed them to survive.  Now they can handle the extreme conditions that now occur once every five years instead of annually.  We on the other hand have not adapted.  Burning Bush that used to be contained to areas near it’s cousins in Georgia are now making their way up the coast to New York.  Princess Trees, Barberry, Butterfly Bush, English Ivy, and many more are making that same journey.  In less than a generation of our lifetime, these species have adapted to the climate change and produced dozens more generations while we are still arguing over whether it even exists.

As humans we are different from plants.  We may live for decades but usually only reproduce during a short window of that time and in small numbers.   While we do physically evolve generationally, we usually reproduce at a peak moment and then actually become weaker for the next two thirds of our life.  Plants and trees that can live hundreds of years get stronger and reproduce every year until that last year of their life when they actually produce the most seed.  Where we differ is in that we have minds that can evolve way beyond our physical bodies.  However, unlike a tree whose wood gets harder with age and ease, we have to work and use our minds to keep them growing even as it gets harder.  If we don’t do this, collectively as a society we can actually get weaker and devolve.  The more we separate into individual pockets of though and deny the science that exists in nature around us the weaker we actually become as a species.  Too often because of our self awareness we lose the awareness of the world around us and slow the evolution of our collective conscience.

In the United States we track plant hardiness and nativity with the USDA system for for classifying plant hardiness known as the USDA Zones.  The system is based on a ranges of temperatures, recorded temperatures by areas, and the minimum temperatures those plants can supposedly take.  The system isn’t based on where these plants should grow, but where they could grow.  It also only covers minimum temperatures and not maximums.  Even more odd, this “could” focus is based on how we can use plants to alter the environment through a commercial view not how to protect and preserve it.  This is from the Department of AGRICULTURE though, not the Environmental Protection Agency.  Throughout the world these systems vary, but an emerging and evolving trend throughout the world does not start with temperatures, it start with plants.  Aerial photography is used to map where the species that form the canopy are, and the undergrowth can be determined by combining that and other data; yet another Copernican shift in the right direction.  People are actually using plants to gain perspective rather than trying to fit them into their own perspectives and learning more about themselves and the world in the end.

Unlike trees, if our minds continue to grow after reproduction we cannot continue to pass it on year after year through our seed.  Even what we do pass on isn’t the content of thought, only the ability.  We can only continue our evolution as a species through education.   The strongest ideas aren’t the ones that are said the most often, screamed the loudest or that have the most money to advertise them.  They are the ones that come from listening, hearing, and collectively evolving with the world around us.  Our evolution as a species is dependent the recognition of our role in the community of species, listening to each other within our species, and admitting that trying to be the strongest being isn’t necessarily in our nature as a species, and doesn’t make us the fittest species.   As a species we can learn a lot from the trees around us, but the message we should learn isn’t to reproduce like the Duggars.  It is that the world is changing, and for us to become the fittest species possible we have to continue to evolve mentally every year, even after our body ceases to evolve.  The lesson is that our seeds are seeds of thought, and without them our minds cannot grow and neither can our species as a whole.

It is funny how we all develop.  I probably could have guessed that my friend leading the read-a-thon would grow up to be a turtle hugger.  As for me, while I was in horticulture at a young age, the technology I work in now was still in the form of a punch card and we couldn’t have seen this coming.  There was a third member of or 9-10 year old research team, and I don’t think I wouldn’t have guessed the future for  him either.  He is writing his dissertation on the effects of invasive species on soil fertility in the upper Midwest.  However, as kids nature planted seeds in our minds, and as we moved to different climates those seeds evolved with the world around us.  I guess our evolution is proof that passion can evolve into thought and doesn’t have to lead to the death or denial of it.  When I look at how we’ve grown, it is reassurance to me that for us to remain the “fittest” species we must continue to evolve our minds and realize that we are part of a community of species.  Likewise, by denying evolution, including climate change, we deny our role in the community of species, weaken our collective mind and species as a whole, and  jeopardize the species Earth as we know it.  How this all came about isn’t what is important, but acknowledgement that it exists and our role in it is vital to our development as a species and to the survival of the world as we know it.

I am still having a hard time taking off running with the blog since Christmas, but with the ground wet and nothing but ice and snow for a month, I couldn’t run if I wanted to.  Normally at this time I would be out prepping beds, putting up trellises for my peas, and digging trenches for my potatoes.  Instead I have been trapped inside by the weather and the year I hoped to be a quick return to the garden after the rains of last summer is anything but.  Instead, I am in the  midst of  a writing binge on the new app similar to the one I was on last summer when I started writing our 1st app.  For a gardener with a philosophy degree this is about as challenging to your sense of reality as your first introduction to Kant’s Epistemology.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with Kant, the basic principle is that the meaning or reality of the things you encounter is not found in the things themselves, but is determined by the filters through which you perceive them.  Put simply, the meaning of an object is relative to the person assigning the meaning; not intrinsically embedded in the object being perceived.  In Philosophy circles this principle is commonly known as “The Copernican Revolution”.  To self-centered beings who perceive the world in how it relates to themselves, it only seems logical that other beings meaning would be centered in the being itself.  In Kant’s day this was as big of a change to most people as Copernicus’ claim that the world was round.

Many people don’t realize that Copernicus’ shift to viewing the world as round was Earth shaking enough to cause the start of the crusades and a complete reversal in the interpretation of the view of the Bible to being the “word” as in story to “Word” as in literal.  Hundreds years later, Kant’s view has unknowingly been adopted in countless ways, and  is viewed as the ethical foundation for capitalism, partisan politics, some religions and even some science.  This is actualized in the view that there is no man made global warming because man is nature.  In some cases it is even taken to the level that our self-centric role in the world is even divinely destined so anything done against another must be justified or forgiven.

Every spring I reach this point of reflection and introspection, and it seems to be directly related to the impending rush to make that first planting deadline of the pea.  The pea of course has similar significance in that it is the first plant ever scientifically bred and led to the proof and eventual discovery of the gene.  Little did Mendel know that his discovery and notion of genetic adaptation would lead to the concept of evolution generations later.  Hundreds of years later, those first discoveries made by a monk and his peas have led to an entire industry and way of life in which nature is now viewed by more people thorough an agricultural or horticultural lens than one seeking nature itself.  Nature is viewed by many as a means to an end for personal need and it’s meaning is derived more in how it relates to them, than the meaning it might have in itself.  Somehow, through the evolution of our thought, we have managed to take the nature out of nature.

I love Kant.   Maybe because in college Father Brady used to insist we called him CAN’T, and my love was out of spite.  Brady’s insistence was not because his shift of reality was away from an intrinsic selves to one self, but because if he was going to make a shift he should have made it toward God.  You could say father Brady was an “Old School” Jesuit…from the days when they carried swords instead of pens.  Regardless of my love for Kant, it doesn’t mean he was entirely right.  In fact my love is from where he made me realize that something was wrong.  He was right in seeing the relativeness, but wrong for denying the other selves, and in turn relationships between them.  I don’t think any of us are always right, because as beings with conscience and free will we have to be capable of wrong.  That is why we have to give up our righteousness and strive for good.  After all, the meaning of Philosophy is the love of knowledge,  not Knowledge by itself.

The thing with Kant’s Copernican Revolutions is that in determining which side of reality holds the meaning, we by default recognize meaning is intrinsic to both sides.  As I watch the world turn in my mind, and I plant my peas one seed at a time, I will undoubtedly be thinking of all the Copernican Revolutions happening right now.  The shift to organic gardening, the hopeful return to more localized markets, the return of our economy to making real goods instead of fake money, our roles as citizens in our country and as citizens of the world are all shifts as big as those caused by four little peas planted by a monk hundreds of years ago.  Our view back to nature having nature may even be as big as realizing the world isn’t flat.  Not to ramble, but these are the musings that made an old friend coin the lyric “In the garden growing different kind of mind”.

Regardless of what you see as important, the one thing these transformations all have in common is the recognition that our view of reality is changing once again.  As the forces of nature respond to our treatment of it, and people respond the polarizing views of each other, we are starting to realize that everything and everyone does have an  intrinsic meaning and they responding to each others’ self-centered views of them.  As I watch the bloggers here, people in the gardening industry and in the social networks on line,  I see the same things.  I see people trying to find their way in thought as well as their careers.  I see my friends in print finding the same uncertainty as those in real estate, and I see a widening gap between the masses of those struggling to choose the “right” side to follow even though both sides are lost and suffering.

Through all this I still see those finding a new way, like that next generation of pea sprouting from a seed.  I see those using technology to enhance the use of their writing instead of to compete with their writing.  I see people using both to bring people together to educate and solve problems.  Amongst all those struggling to use these new tools to shout the loudest and most often, as though there is something to win, I am starting to see new species emerge with a steady sturdy growth.   These people aren’t trying to win a battle of the fittest.  They are growing and creating their own Copernican Revolution in which the meaning isn’t in who or which, but in how:  how we move forward together, how we effect each other, and how we can bring out the meaning in each other to embrace the meaning of us all.

This is a new generation not founded in who’s reality is right, but what is the best way forward.  The new reality requires finding the meaning in each other, embracing the symbiotic relationships intrinsic to our nature, throwing away the notion of right, and trying to do what is good.  That little pea that seemingly sprouts out of nowhere in March and grows ever so slowly until it explodes with abundance and sweetness in June isn’t moving slowly because the lettuce is better.  It is taking it’s time and giving some nitrogen to the soil on it’s way.  It is letting the bees take as much pollen as they can.  In return the bees are pollinating even more, and if we don’t treat that mildew on the leaves the bees will pollinate a bumper crop because we didn’t kill them with chemicals.  If we look for the meaning in relationships with each other instead of in ourselves we will see that this revolution won’t require wars, because the great change will be ending the wars we create with one another and against the world we live in.  What is right will become seeking good, and that’s not so bad.

Now,  if you are not under ten inches of snow get our there and grow some mind.

It’s an age old question that can apply to many things.  Names are something we take for granted, but in reality they are the fundamental basis of all communications.  When we think of names we think of what we call one another, our pets, our children and our places.  In reality though ever word in every language is in essence a name.  Even a verb is the name for an action that takes many words to explain, that is why they all have definitions.  Imagine trying to give someone directions without a name for the action of “turn”.  Most importantly though, we use names to explain relations.  First names, last names, family trees, nationalities, and the names for the relations between these things are what derive and keep order in our world.  Even further they are the signposts to how we navigate and determine our possible impact on and place in the world. Names of course vary among languages and regions.   Different words (names) are used to describe the same thing in different languages and locations.  In the end, regardless of differences in language, the objects and actions being described by their name can be recognized for what they are and the variations in language can be translated.

The scenario where this doesn’t work is in living beings.  Verbs can vary in how they are performed, but that can be described with adverbs.  Physical objects like rocks or furniture can vary in visible traits or molecular makeup, but that variations are qualified with adjectives to help further describe the object.  Even these can easily be recognized visually and translated between languages and cultures because the “name” is essentially the same.

Where absolute accuracy is essential and qualifying additives cannot do justice to a name is when it comes to living beings.  When it comes to people, accuracy doesn’t seem to be such a problem because we are all unique and have a free will.  We will always act individually even within a community and the genetic heritage of our name has limited capabilities in determining or predicting how we will act.  People can even share the same names, but be easily qualified with adjectives or descriptors because every human is distinct.  With people and even domesticated animals, the genetic code may vary slightly within our species, but our wills, personalities, relationships and souls make us all easily discernible from one another.

With other less discernible species such as grasses, lichens, trees, fish, birds and non-domesticated animals the species may be discernible as a whole but the identity of individuals within the species is much less clear.  More importantly the collective impact or necessity of the species has an even greater effect on the world and nature as a whole.  Names of these species describe a collective whose members act on a collective instinct (or possibly conscience) instead of individual free wills.  In the end these names represents more than the one.  They give insight and understanding into the collective nature and cultural background of the species as a whole.

To answer the the title question:  Everything about and everything something and what it impacts is in a name.  A good name captures both the essence and esse of what it describes.  It captures the traits of what makes the thing being described unique (essence) as well as the intrinsic presence that makes it identifiable for what it is (esse).   Where meaning gets lost is when variation occurs in the naming itself rather than the translation of the names.  In the plant world people work in both common and botanical names.  The botanical name is a Latin based name that is used not only to identify the plant, but also gives insight into the breeding and heritage that led to it’s creation.  It is is written in Latin to provide a universal language whose meaning will not be lost in translation world-wide.  This allows us to see what the species is, where it has come from genetically, and what it might do in nature or the situation we put it in.

Common names are regional and based on local peoples’ experiences with the plant rather than the culture and cultivation of the plant itself.  Common names are extremely descriptive, but subjective and should never be used when striving for accuracy of any kind. There is much debate about what people like to use, and whether the botanical name is important if you are not a professional horticulturist or botanist.  However, you really can’t know the plant well enough to responsibly plant in nature or a landscape without the information provided by an accurate botanical name.  Common names may tell what a plant has done, but cannot give sure insight of what it is capable of doing.  Accurate and exact botanical naming of all species (not just plants) is crucial the the protection of nature itself as well as understanding it.  Nothing has been more influential to the spread of invasive species and disease than improper naming that occurs in the commercialization of plants and the mis-education that improper naming provides.

Over the last fifteen years, with the rise of genetic testing, efforts have been underway world-wide to cleanup this mess, and bring order to this problem. The Integrated Taxonomic Information System is one of the efforts that has been working across borders and oceans to make this happen.  The ITIS is a collaborative effort of governments and  academic systems, that crosses borders and oceans, but is greatly limited by the inertia and limited funding of the respective institutions.  There are others that specialized even more into areas such as fungi, cacti, wattles, and regional ecosystems.  These groups have a passion and sense of urgency but don’t have cooperative and interconnected systems to make some of this possible.  This problem isn’t limited to the plant kingdom, it is pervasive in the animal kingdom as well, and both do relate to one another.

Most of the early misnaming has been created by the limitation of communications.  Most botanical naming was done long before the Internet was ever created and the commerce of species became a worldwide phenomenon long before there was a world-wide-web.  As a result duplicate species are being sold and shipped with different names throughout the world.  Even more damaging, multiple species are being distributed throughout the world with the same name, and this is where the greatest danger lyes.  People are shipping and using plants all over the world for uses they are not suited for or with potential impacts that they are totally unaware of.   What is in the name they are buying or selling is actually of another name.  The greatest responsibility  lyes in the breeders and distributors of these species to accurately identify what they are selling, and to accurately identify what they are breeding them from.  Unfortunately, until the system is completely cleaned up and connected this cannot be done.

Commercialization has not only led to the spread of misnamed species, but people are breeding new species and varieties from already misnamed species at rates ten times faster than the original species were discovered.  When we started Botany Buddy it was created to help communicate and educate between the “classes” (for lack of a better name) of gardeners.   The tools we are creating are meant to bring the same language to educators, botanists, growers, purveyors and gardeners in a way that is easily accessed and understood by all.  Our original iPhone app was created to educate, communicate, and identify information to the user and for the users to be able to communicate it to each other.  In the end it has communicated just as much to us.  With users in over twenty counties and on every continent we have communicated with botanists all over the world to help us design our new database and systems.

Just this week we finished proofing the final taxonomic database for the upcoming web based app.  With about 60,000 species ACCURATELY represented we can now add data, photos, and even more species to the database and know that we can truly represent the species’ family heritage.  When we started this our intent was to add a thousand or so trees at a time, and just build on the library we had in the original app every so often.  In the end we realized we needed to add the ones we have now into nature’s library and to create our own Dewey Decimal System to manage it the information in it.  As a result our final product will be a tool that has literally “thousands times” more information than our initial release and will be formatted to grow at any given moment and with more accuracy than any other resource I have found in existence.  This capability would be totally impossible if it were not for a name.

Personally I like to be a little incognito in my gardening circles.  Those who “know” me know not just my name, but my botanical name as well.  I would venture to say those who read this blog regularly are probably getting to know me on that level to some extent.  The other day I was at garden center and watched someone selling an ornamental grass.  This person did not know my botanical name.   The customer asked if the plant would spread by seed.  The sales person said, “No this is Kirk Alexander Maiden Grass and is a hybrid that was cultivated by a local designer years ago.”  I pointed across the highway to about a 1/4 mile long stretch of maiden grass growing in a ditch, and said, “That may be Kirk Alexander in the pot, but those are his parents over there and they didn’t arrive until after Kirk did.”  Needless to say they looked at me like I was nuts, but that is what is in a name. If we know where we come from we know where we might go.

People are all hybrids and we may be determined not to become our parents, but it in the end both the best and the worst of them tends to come out in us.  Obviously I get my verbosity from my father.  He always used to say “the mind cannot absorb more than the seat can endure”, so I will wrap this up.  This trait about me you could definitely predict if I had a botanical name.  Our naming task has taken far longer, more mental energy, and more patience and determination than almost anything I have ever done.  It is and has to be the foundation of everything we do going forward to really be a great reference.  I like superlatives, and this may be the most important and responsible work I have done in the last thirty years and hope will help the world for hundreds of years to come.  That is what is in a name.

The holiday has come and gone, and the annual ritual of pardoning the White House bird has gone on as planned.  This time it was a 45 lb. / 18 week old broadbreasted Turkey named Courage.   According to the AP, “Obama said Courage will spend the rest of his life in “peace and tranquility” at Disneyland.”  Of course President Obama displayed some pure honesty that we should all be thankful for when right before the pardon he said, “”I’m told Presidents Eisenhower and Johnson actually ate their turkeys.  You can’t fault them for that; that’s a good-looking bird.”  If the birds that those guys pardoned had anywhere near the future ahead or life past this bird has had they should be applauded.  Let’s face it this is the worst staging I am yet to see our of a White House that really excels at staging the “green” agenda.  Having PETA standing there with The National Turkey Federation while pardoning a genetically modified bird is akin to having Monsanto host a vegan dinner with the Organic Growers Association as they serve GMO tofu fried in pure lard.

I am yet to verify the actual breed of the bird that was pardoned, but I do know that it came from a factory farm in North Carolina.  I can also tell you this, no bird that reaches 45 lbs. in 18 weeks is a heritage bird, and most definitely has been bread for one thing…eating.    Also the all white breeds of turkey that have been bred for factory farms are all genetically engineered.  There is no naturally occurring all white turkey that comes near 45 lbs. in its lifetime, let alone 18 weeks.  The closest thing you can get to a white heritage bird is the Royal Palm, which my 5-year old friend Louie (pictured next) happens to be.  For a White House that has lauded their organic garden and served from it to world leaders, to have chosen the bird they did was a Royal missed opportunity (sorry for the pun Louie).

Having grown both heritage turkeys and two broad breasted (genetically engineered) birds, this one touches a little too close to home.  Louie, my Royal Palm,  is in his fifth year, and is as happy as can be as King of Little Creek Farm.  He does live a life in  “Disneyland for birds”.  He had a mate who lived a similar life until she met her natural fate from a predator.  Heritage birds make fantastic long term companions, as well as tasty free-range fare.  Pardoning and growing heritage birds helps preserve one of the many breeds that are becoming endangered, and encourages their comeback.  It also helps to encourage biodiversity and prevents the conditions that harbor and promote diseases such as Asian Bird Flu.   However, the broad breasted birds that are bred for eating are bred solely for one thing and that is eating.  They are bread to live very short lives and develop bodies that frankly they cannot live with or physically support.  I hate to be so harsh, but they are bred to be killed before they are forced to suffer the misery that their breeding causes.

Our first year raising turkeys we ordered two broad breasted bronze birds with the intention of having them ready for Thanksgiving and Christmas as well as our Royal Palms for pets.  After Thanksgiving came and we had done the deed with #1 (40 lbs. dressed), we decided we just weren’t up for that much bird again at Christmas and thought we would hang on to #2 and try to breed her with Louie the following year.  The thinking was we might get a smaller bird out of the cross, and since Louie had lost Marie (his mate) to the bobcat we thought he would like having a companion.  So we pardoned #2 and decided to let her live a nice long life on Little Creek Farm.  That pardon might as well have been a sentence to a concentration camp.

Broad breasted birds that are bred for eating are bred to sit in a cage and be force fed until slaughter, not free-range to their hearts content.  In fact their hearts can’t even begin to support their weight and they have an extremely short lifespan compared to Louie’s so-far gracious presence.  A turkey that gets to the weight Courage has at the rate Courage has, won’t even be able to support his weight with his own legs before long.  Unfortunately these birds are born to die, and as soon as they reach that ideal weight they are engineered to reach, they loose all the wonderful traits and personality that give turkeys their essence and that our founders found worthy of making them our national bird.

Now as for #2, she  did eventually get a name.  Unfortunately to tell you the truth by the time she got it she had lost all the personality to go with it.  Once winter set in she literally had to be carried out of the chicken house in the morning, and carried in at night.  She was obviously miserable.  She was unable to attend to her own hygiene, and she definitely couldn’t keep company with other birds.  Her breast was even permanently void of feathers because she couldn’t keep it off the ground.  What we thought was pardoning her to a life in “Disneyland” turned out to be a sentence in Guantanamo.  In the end we did what had to be done, and should have been done in the first place, and she became Easter.

I do like the message of being kind to animals, and I am an animal lover.  However, the real lesson that was missed in this wasn’t the cruelty of eating a bird that was bred to be eaten, but the cruelty of breeding things for eating in the first place.  As gardeners we are finding our roots in heirloom vegetables and discovering the superior flavors and textures.  With this year’s devastating blight on tomatoes we are even seeing how preserving that biodiversity is crucial to preventing such catastrophes.  If raised where the space, water and nutrients they need occurs naturally, these plants grow better than those tortured by over planting, over feeding, and over watering in our mono-cropped farms.

The same is true of meats as well.  Grass fed beef and pork is coming back into favor, and micro farms are even starting to grow heirloom mammals as well.  Whether you are a meat eater or not, you have to be able to recognize that we are breeding the souls out of these animals or at the very least torturing them to death.  If you have a culinary inclination you can also taste this happening.  The soul in the flavor of heritage breeds can be tasted just like it can a free-range egg or wild shrimp and fish.  It is rich and identifiable unlike the pale eggs from the poultry palaces or fish raised in mud retaining ponds on the side of the highway.  These breeds have souls and we need to protect them and encourage their proliferation.

I am certain that  Courage is a mighty fine bird.  He may not be a heritage bird that truly symbolizes what our forefathers saw in this breed, and you can’t blame him for wanting to go to Disneyland.  There must be something about him that won the hearts of these people to become the chosen one.  In the end he may have deserved that pardon.  After all he is not the one that committed the crime.  That said, he doesn’t deserve the life he has ahead of him either, and he could have been pardoned from that.

It’s that time of year again, and if you have read me before, I have already chimed in on my support for your local garden center when you buy your Christmas tree.  I always like to support my local businesses, and this is one year where they could really use your help.  Where I live, this is usually a pretty “green” option as well since we are in the heart of Frazier Fir county.   The trees in our local nurseries usually come from less than an hour away.  However,  some people want to make the “greenest” decision when it comes to this ritual, and cannot imagine that  “Sustainability” could require cutting down a living tree.  Since being sustainable is contingent on those who have to do the sustaining, I thought I would put together this little guide to help you choose the best and “greenest” tree for you.

THE WORST:  Artificial Trees. These are without a doubt the most damaging to the environment.  I know that common thinking would be that not cutting down a tree would be the greenest option.  However, this is without a doubt the worst.  Artificial trees are loaded with PVC and toxic fire retardants.  Most are made in countries with little regard to water pollution and the manufacturing plants themselves do more to damage the environment that the toxins used to make the tree.  Even worse is the shipping.  Most of these trees are shipped half way around the world before they ever make it to the states. Then they are shuffled from state to state and warehouse to warehouse before they ever make it to your door.  Besides the “green” aspects of this, when it comes to sustainability you are lucky if five cents on the dollar actually makes it into the local economy.

THE ALMOST AS BAD:  Cut Trees From Box Stores. This year’s tomato blight should tell us a little about this.  In their desire to  get the cheapest possible tree to sell these companies will not hesitate one second to ship a Frazier Fir from coast to coast to save a penny.  Secondly, as evidenced by the tomato blight they will have little regard to shipping exotic invasive species such as Woolly Adelgid with them.  Since Christmas trees are “harvested” they have little regulations regarding interstate shipping of diseased plants, and with the condensed harvest season their is no way such regulations could be successfully enforced.  On the sustainability side, once again, this does little for you local economy unless you happen to live in Bentonville, Arkansas.

GETTING GREENER:  Cut Trees From A Local Garden Center. Obviously I am a little partial to this one for convenience and support of the industry, and if grown locally these trees can be extremely green.  However, many of these will often be dyed, and garden centers like to get all crafty and carry “Boutique Trees”  That tend to come from different parts of the country.  My favorite tree is actually a Noble Fir, but since moving to Frazier country I have given that option up to be green.   As for sustainability, these trees are usually bought from coops or regionally which cuts down on shipping, and puts more money back into the local economy.

YOU WOULD THINK THIS GREENER:  The Living Tree. Growing in popularity has been has been the living tree that is brought inside for a short period of time and then taken out to be planted immediately after the holiday.  Sounds “green” to me.  However, the amount of labor and chemicals that go into growing a live tree for retail sale is far greater than what it takes to grow a cut tree.  The water to keep them alive while out of the ground must be figured in.  The shipping of the soil means they can only get a fraction of the trees on the truck, and the chances of them actually surviving this torture is about 30 percent.  Very few places handle evergreens properly at this time of year, and even fewer homeowners will, even if they have the best of intentions.  Add to all of that the terrible timing of trying to plant in frozen soil and getting it backfilled correctly, this just rarely turns out as intended.

GREENER AND CAUSAL:  Local Roadside Stands for Charity. Lately it seems like the local roadside stands have been taken over by local charities, and to save money these are almost always stocked locally or regionally.  Grant it these are typically lower grade trees and they are never as pretty as the prime stock that goes to your local garden center, but if this is the season of giving this is a good way to go.  You are less likely to have artificial dyes, the shipping should be limited, and you are giving the proceeds straight back to your community.  These are also usually bought from the same folks that are supplying the box stores without the damage to the environment caused by the shipping, and since these are second grade trees you are saving them from a burn pile.

THE GREENEST COMMERCIAL OPTION:  The Local Tree Farm. Going to a local tree farm, picking out the perfect specimen, drinking some cocoa, and strapping it to your car for the sentimental journey home is without a doubt the “greenest” and most sustainable commercial option.  The shipping is limited to a drive you would make anyway.  Cut your own growers tend to use far less chemicals, and machinery.  You don’t have all the over the road trucking, and every dollar goes right to the person that grew the tree.  You also know that they are going to plant another tree right in its place because they are dependent upon it for the continued revenue.  These growers are also going to practice selective harvesting since you are choosing the tree.  They wont be clear cutting field and plowing mountain tops to keep up with the box store demand.

THE GREENEST OPTION:  Cut Down an Invasive Species: There are many parts of the country were cedars, certain varieties of spruce and pines are actually invasive species and need to be removed.  If you happen to know someone with some land that will let you cut one down, take them up on it.  You know they haven’t been sprayed or pruned and what is a nuisance to them can create a great memory for you.  At the same time you will be doing something good for the environment without taking anything from it.  This option also happens to be the cheapest.

What is the “greenest” may not be the best for you.  Allergies may prevent you from having a cut or living tree at all, and your travel, schedule, or specific traditions and needs may dictate less green options.  The important part is that you choose your tree thoughtfully because it will be creating memories in the days ahead for many years to come.  Hopefully this list will help you make the “greenest” decision you can and bring even more meaning to your holidays.

One of the things that I have never gotten used to living in the Appalachians is driving past signs that tell me I have crossed the Eastern Continental Divide.  Having worked all over Southern Appalachia this happens to me often and every time I do I am reminded of a legendary church in the mountains that straddles this line running North and South.  The water that supposedly runs off of either side of the roof either flows into the French Broad to Mississippi and Gulf of Mexico, or toward Charleston and to the Atlantic Ocean.  Legend has it that before running water the women’s outhouse was on the Atlantic side and the men’s was on the Mississippi side.  Supposedly it was to be cordial and let the ladies have the shorter journey.  Regardless, the stories of the divide somehow manage to bring people together and no matter where you go along the divide people seem to have their stories and want to hear yours.

As I point out often I am from the Midwest and grew up around the Missouri River.  We lived in Missouri, but the rest of our family lived in Illinois so the closest thing we had to a divide was the Mississippi River.  The thing about rivers is they are also about bringing things together.  As all the water flows down steam and they keep coming together and getting larger and larger, they seem to bring everyone together.  Rivers can be great dividers with only a few bridges to cross them, but when it comes to the life of the communities around and on either side of them, rivers seem to bring people and places together.  Even though they are physically divided, the people on both sides  have a desire to cross them and a shared dependency on the rivers as a source of life and livelihood.  Just like water is the source of all life, it is also the source of shared life and community.  On the other hand the Continental divides and the violent upheavals that created the mountains are definitely barriers that water just can’t cross, and all of the water that flows from them may eventually come together, but the ever building momentum of the rivers make those divides seem even farther apart.

I have been dealing with these divides everyday lately.  When we created Botany Buddy our initial plant database was from Oregon State University.  While the creator of the library is well traveled and captured most of the major species in the United States, the few that are missing are all East of the Rockies.  I knew of this divide from my years working in nurseries and my experience with nursery stock dying in the trucks at higher elevations if you tried ship it from Oregon to the Midwest through the Rockies.  What never dawned on me was just how prevalent this divide was in native species.  It isn’t as obvious here on the East Coast.  The highest point is only about 6500 feet, and there are lots of natural crossings in the 3-4,00 foot range.  However this divide has become prevalent in my life even though it is a couple thousand miles away.

This divide runs through plants, animals, insects diseases and even weather that just can’t make it over the mountains.  Everything that is found in an ecosystem on this continent is effected by the Western Continental Divide.  Since Botany Buddy has launched we have found even more divides.  Having users in 25 countries and 5 continents we have become obsessed with these divides and how to cross them.  As we have been developing our web app we are finding partners throughout the states as well as these other continents, and in many cases those people have come to us.  With all these divides in our lives, somehow in less than two months I am finding myself closer connected to people all around this world than I am many of the people in my own valley.  My local stream hasn’t brought me to these people, and our rivers don’t even run together, but our divides have brought us together.  On either side of every divide are people with similar desires, passions, and needs to bridge those barriers and open the free flow of people, trade, and most importantly ideas and information.

We have found the new rivers to bring us together right here on the Internet.  Some people use technology and the web as a divide to hide from others and work in seclusion, but there is a ground swell of people out there using the new mediums to get connected and let their ideas run downstream to the waters that feed all life.  When we started this project we were obsessed with the data, what data we had, and that it could be carried in your pocket.  We were also concerned with making sure that information could be shared and that we could bring people together so they could bring people to us.  However, before the original design of our first app was ever complete Botany Buddy as a whole was all ready moving into broader, deeper and faster moving waters.  By not focusing on solely the iPhone, we have been able to create a product that isn’t based on divvying up our information for you to put in your pocket but rather connect you to even more.  While a device can help you get connected, the app platform is designed to isolate information, and encourages keeping you isolated with native, unadulterated information contained solely on the app.

Like a flood upon launching this app it became clear to us that the rivers that would bring these divides together actually flew over those mountains, not between them, and they were the channels of the Internet.  At first this really scared me.  I have seen areas completely devastated by invasive species, and some of the first on-line garden businesses I noticed were people shipping plants internationally.  When it comes to exotic invasive species somethings need to be divided for a reason, and need to stay that way.  What was even crazier was I saw people shipping plants from England to California even though they were native to where they already were.  They were also paying five times the local price for these plants.  At first this notion of crossing the great divide was scaring me.  The last thing I wanted to be was a conveyor of ecological disaster.

Thankfully, more often we are approached by people who understand that what we are trying to create is an every changing and evolving reference source, not a sales floor.  We want to bring people the tools they need to do their jobs better and more efficiently, but most importantly we really want to make sure they have the information to do it responsibly.  We also want to make sure they can do it no matter what phone they are on, or even if they are just sitting at their desk.  I moved to this field from private design because as much as I loved the one on one interaction I had with my clients, I felt I could do more good if we all could interact and have access to equal, objective, accurate, and complete information whenever we needed it.

The very physical divides that have affected our environments continue to effect our travels, but they don’t have to interfere with the travel of our thoughts.  Just like the story of the old men and the church have brought together all stripes of people who have crossed the Eastern Continental Divide,  your stories of your endeavors are helping bring us together with people all over the world.  The shared desire to have the information we need to make responsible decisions that benefit us all is what drives us everyday, and late into the night.  These connections that we are making are real, and that is why the results will be too.  Without these divides we wouldn’t have made these connections, and we wouldn’t be a hundredth the resource we will eventually become.  In the end, we couldn’t do this without you and the stories and information that you share, and for that we are thankful for the divides that have brought us all together.

Since I started Botany Buddy and have been writing content for all of our upcoming applications, I have become somewhat addicted to reading all the old print trade magazines as well as blogs.  It seems like one of the hottest topics is and always has been lawns and the use of turf grass in design.  I have seen those that despise turf of any kind, those that don’t mind it as long as it is 100% organic, and those that think declaring your manifest destiny with acres of perfectly manicured turf is a symbol of the American way.  I hate to say it but you all my just be right, because what is actually the right thing to do may be dependent upon the situation you are in.

I always like to take nature as my guide.  Having spent the last five years designing and creating covenants for “sustainable” conservation properties, I have struggled with this dilemma myself and have come of with somewhat of a guide for decision making.  Like with everything else, I use nature as my guide.  If there was no place for grasses in our environment I seriously doubt we would have had the prairies, savannas, and wetlands to begin with.  All three of these situations are nature’s home to grasses, and they have very specific roles in the habitat of our wildlife and ecosystem as a whole.  Other than grazing,  The main roles of grass in all of these situation are erosion control, water filtration, and play.

Erosion control is pretty easy to understand, and there is a reason all best management practices in construction require very stringent seeding or sodding processes.  Once we killed the prairies, the winds blowing across the prairies would create the dust bowl and we learned this lesson the hard way.  Once grasses secure and protect disturbed soil the roots and thatch of the grass naturally convert the exposed subsoil into nutrient rich topsoil.  If you have ever lived in a brand new subdivision you see the emulation of this natural condition for the first ten to twenty years of its existence.  If you have lived and gardened in a 100 year old neighborhood you have enjoyed the benefits of the nice rich soil this process leaves behind.  Even in the woods, the herbaceous layer of perennials and in some cases grasses serve this same function.  The process of growing, dying back, and returning to the soil is emulated in our own lawn as long as we leave the thatch in place.

The other place grasses are most prevalent are in wetlands and river bottoms.  besides holding up the blooms of the beautiful wildflowers flowers for us to see better, grasses also are a vital filtration device for the water that flows through them.  This can be the same in our yards.  Running your storm water across a lawn is far better for the environment than channeling it in river rock or piping it to a storm water inlet.  Running water across 30 feet of healthy turf can remove 90% of the sediment and pollutants the water carries.  However this only works of you aren’t using even more pollutants to take care of the grass.  If managed responsibly, turf is actually one of the most ecologically friendly ways to manage surface water and drainage.  In the end the damage done poor drainage can be far worse than anything you can do with a lawn.

The final natural use of grassy areas I like to call “Play”.  If you have ever had the chance to see Elk emerge from the forest after an afternoon rain to engage in their courting rituals and graze you know exactly what I am talking about.  The same can be said for buffalo or deer, and it is not unlike watching  my daughter play games in the front lawn with a bunch of her friends.  The need for wide open spaces and battle our sense of claustrophobia is not only natural to us but most other species as well.  No matter how unnatural some can make a lawn look, wide open grassy spaces are very much a vital part of our natural landscape.  Unless a landscape is completely wooded they can look very unnatural without some form of lawn.  I have seen plenty of gardens planted to the gills.   Without a hint of negative space in the form of a meadow or lawn and they can look just as unnatural as a lawn.  Ground covers can provide this effect too, but if they grow lower than weeds it is impossible to keep them healthy and if they are aggressive enough to keep them out they are usually an invasive species.

In short the challenge to designing with lawns isn’t whether or not to do it.  The amount of sunlight and ability of the environment to support grass will determine that.  The challenge is finding the methods of installation and management that get it established quickly, and do more to benefit nature than we do to harm it in the process.  To guide you through these decisions I have put together this summary.  This in not a “How To”.  There will be an app for that.  Think of it as a “why to”…or to not.  I think you will find your answers come naturally and they will do more to help you succeed than any four-step program you buy and your local retailer.

Turf Grass Installation:

If you are looking for a traditional lawn, the two most common methods for installation are sodding and seeding. With soil preparation sodding typically costs from $1.00-$1.25 per square foot.  Seeding Usually Costs $.15 to $.25 per square foot.  However, this is very deceiving when you consider what it takes to achieve establishment.  To get seed to establish into a lawn in a landscape takes an average of 3-4 applications of herbicides, preemergents, and fertilizers per year.  It also usually requires at least one major aeration and renovation if not more, extensive watering, and frequent overseeding.  It also takes more water to establish the seed, and to maintain it in the hottest times of the year because it has less of a root system to support the blades.  This is just for one year, and it actually takes two full years of diligent, chemical ladent maintenance to beat the lifecycle of the weeds.   That is only if your timing is prefect and you don’t miss a beat.  Otherwise it can take longer.

There is no doubt that sod farms water incessantly, and pump tons of chemicals into the soil.  But the space that they pollute is limited.  They will typically get twenty or more harvests out of the same piece of ground.  They also tend to harvest and recylce their water and as a result are becoming more and more conscious of the the nitrogen levels and especially herbicides in it.  Due to the intense methods and irrigation, sod farms also produce a harvest ready turf in six to twelve months vs. two to three years.  This means it takes at the most 1/3 the chemical usage to achieve the desired thickness as it does to seed a lawn.  They are also strictly strictly regulated when it comes to run-off whereas homeowners are some of the biggest polluters with with their fertilizers running off right to the street and into the storm water system with no riparian buffer at all.  Numerous sources can be found to cite that homeowners use 10 times the number of pollutants on their lawns per acre than agriculture does.  This should make us think twice about how responsible we are.

Turf Grass Maintenance:

Mowing: The most environmental damage that results from lawns isn’t from having them, but rather how we take care of them. There are three main things to look at in the care of the lawn, mowing, fertilizing, pest/disease and weed control, and watering.  While treating pests, diseases and weeds directly contributes the most toxins to the soil and water, how you mow and water contributes to most to how much treating you need to do.  There is now greater deterrent to all of these other problems than having a healthy lawn in the first place.  Remember all of these other problems occur when what you trying to grow in the first place is weakened by not being allowed to do what it wants to do naturally.

Almost all turf grasses are bred from naturally occurring varieties that grow between six and twenty-four inches in height.  Now most of them have been bread to have thinner blades and can no longer hold themselves up naturally, but the closer we can allow them to get to that six inches the more they can do to take care of themselves and their space for us.  Other than specialty turfs like zoysia (which set you up for failure anyway), most common turf grasses shouldn’t be mowed shorter than three inches and should be allowed to grow at least two before mowing.  Not only will this make the grass perform better, but it will get tall enough to keep most weeds out, or at least hide them.  Your mower also pollutes, but that is a topic for another blog, hopefully the price of gas is starting to make you aware of that.

Chemical Treatments

Fertilizing: The two most common chemicals applied to lawns are fertilizers and herbicides.  Even organic chemicals, especially fertilizers, can create runoff if over used and pollute our streams.  Chicken manure is organic, and a great fertilizer, but you don’t want you well head next to the chicken house.  The best deterrent is to only use them when absolutely necessary.  Too often people throw down nitrogen every time their lawn looks a little yellow or brown.  Some times it just needs a simple trace mineral like lime or iron, or it just plain needs a break because it is too hot or cold out.  The only times that the need for nitrogen can be very obvious are in spring and fall when the grass is in prime growing season and it is still having problems.  Keeping grass growing in 100 degree temperatures is just as brutal as trying to keep yourself going and sometime we both just need a break.

Herbicides: Weed control is the second biggest polluter in lawn care.  It is also probably the easiest battle to lose.  That is why I recommend not even trying if you don’t have too.  My personal lawn is a mix of fescue, bluegrass and rye, but it also has some oxallis, nutgrass, and clover.  These weeds don’t get large enough to kill out the turf grass, and they provide fodder for the rabbits that keeps them out of my veggie patch.  When they go dormant in the fall, their thatch also creates a nice medium for overseeding the fescue that is slowly choking them out.   If you do have to treat something, only spot treat it, and only bother with things that can actually get big enough to kill out your grass or is a seriously invasive species like honeysuckle or crown vetch.

Pesticides and Fungicides: Aren’t used as often as other chemicals but can be just as dangerous to the water supply and wildlife even in smaller quantities.  Once again the question here is why bother.  Yes grubs will bring moles that tear up your yard, but grubs prefer clay and the moles help aerate and break it down.  Grubs also provide food for wildlife like wild turkeys and robins.  Treating fungus can slow down the organic processes needed to actually let your lawn and soil improve by itself, and the pesticides can kill the worms that provide the best fungicide and aeration of all.  Most of the problems you would treat for in the first place you can’t spot until the damage is done.  It is easily repaired with over seeding in the fall, and most disease and insect problems will usually run a natural course and disappear within a year.  In the end preventative treatments can do far more damage to your soil than the actual problems you are treating for, so think twice before applying or don’t apply at all.

Watering: I recently did a post on watering titled:  Plants Are Like People: Water With Love Even If It’s Tough. All of the same rules I go over there apply to turf.  A healthy turf can’t use more than an inch of precipitation a week, and should never be manually watered more often than once per week.  If you follow the instructions on the previous post you can get away with hardly watering at all.  We just came off of one of the worst droughts in the history of the Southeast, and in those years I never had to water my lawn more than once a month during the summer because I used the deep fall and winter  watering described in the previous post.  Also the taller you let your grass get the deeper the roots will grow.  If the roots are three inches deep, and you have watered deep enough to reach all the roots, you should be able to go three weeks without watering.  There are some common sense things you should do to prevent runoff like not watering the street or your driveway, but nothing is better for the environment than eliminating the need to water at all.

To wrap things up, lawns represent a vital part of our natural ecosystem.  They serve functions that are vital to wildlife and nature as well as our nature as human beings.  As long as we take nature’s cues on when to use them and don’t try to grow them where they don’t belong or want to be there is nothing unnatural about them at all.  What is unnatural is what we have been doing to them.

There is a dirty little secret in the gardening business that there are three things someone will spend 500 times what they spent on the plant on the supplies to grow them:  tomatoes, roses, and grass.  Next time you are in a garden center or big box store, look around and see what they have dedicated their space to.  Successful gardening is about getting plants to grow for us so we can focus on finding, growing and new plants.  If a lawn doesn’t do more to take care of the space it occupies either you are doing too much for it, or it shouldn’t be there in the first place.  There are natural uses and needs for lawns, we just have to take nature’s cues and think naturally about what we do with them.

What happens when you combine politics, various county governments, Academe and community organizing?  Usually not much.  Having been been raised in Academe and involved in plenty of politics, when I first heard of a BYGL I definitely had my preconceived notions.  In fact the first image that came to my mind was the Spoofhound.  That was the name of my high school mascot. Rumor had it in the early days our football team was so inept at coming together and working as a team that the coach said they all looked like a bunch of  Spoofhounds.  The name has stuck as long as anyone can remember.  Of course when the teams are good everyone tries to change their name to “The Hounds”.  However being a dog lover I have always been fond of the name Spoofhound.  I couldn’t have been more proud of that name when they recently gained national notoriety for an act of selflessness that became a network and Internet sensation and showed how greatness can be reached when unlikely partners come together to do something good. (story)

When I first heard of  ”The Bygles” (at least that is what I call them), I have to admit I imagined somewhat of a Spoofhound effort in the purest sense of the name.  After all how could so many competing entities possibly come together to beat the odds for the benefit of everyone.  Anyone who has worked in horticulture or been a gardener knows that when you are working one on one with an extension agent it can be a wonderful experience.  However, if you knew what it requires to allow that to happen you would be surprised you had the chance to meet with an agent at all.  Typically University Extension Services are are funded by a combination of federal, state, and local or county funds.  Most are also usually torn between a university system and local governments.  This makes it really easy for someone be turned into a research assistant or someone who has to do the biddings of a politician trying to seek reelection.  Yet somehow through personal care and a love of their jobs by individual agents those of us on the receiving end are rarely aware of this paradox.  These agents are friends, educators, and ambassadors between the farmer in the field or the gardener in their yard and many different figments in ivory tours that hold the fate their existence in a very fragile web of funding and interests.

Somehow in the story of  ”The Bygles” all of these odds are overcome to create an effort more worthy of the name Superdog than a Spoofhound.  BYGL is a statewide newsletter put out weekly through the growing season by The Ohio State University Extension Service.  This seems like no big deal.  All of our local agents put out at least monthly newsletters, or at least most do.  However this one is different.  Every week during the growing season agents from every county in the state come together via conference call to discuss not only what is happening in their districts, but how diseases, insects, and trends are acting across the entire state and their region of the country as a whole.

For one day every week these people bring all of their local perspectives but put aside their local agendas to see how they can address these problems as a state and on a statewide level.  After the meeting everything is compiled into one document and not only faxed out to all of their various members and users, but also put together online where the report can be accessed.  Not only can the report be accessed, but through the effort of some dedicated agents and university staff, wonderful photos are taken and information is gathered to tell the story as it needs to be addressed today and not just recycled from some old files.  Not only that, they reach outside of their own circle to other agencies and resources, and all the appropriate links and references are included so people can quickly find what they need.  As a result they are able to address problems and needs for the entire state as an ecosystem rather than one county at a time, and over come all the bureaucratic odds.

As gardeners our biggest challenge is learning the ecosystems we work in and learning how to help the plants and animals in them to work together for the good of the entire garden.  Gardening can be challenging, but working across all the various bureaucratic boundaries, and hierarchies to pull this off has to be harder.  One of  ”The Bygles” likes to say “Information is not Education”  As someone with a philosophy degree, I have to agree.  Having managed lands in many states and across state and county lines, I have become familiar with many extension services and their resources.  They are loaded with information and are extremely valuable resources, but BYGL is definitely designed for education, not just to disperse information.

The last BYGL was just published for the season until next spring, but I highly recommend you check this site out.  I would be proud to call this dog a Spoofhound in the greatest sense.  *Note: when you go to this page the links to older newsletters are at the bottom.  The links at the top are under construction as they are archiving this years content.