Dogs seem to bark most often at the presence of people. And in many cases the presence of other animals of any kind. Which leads me to believe that since the United States is abandoning our lunar space travel program, there’s little chance that any more moon-howling will be going on. Third Dog will have to be content to howl at kids riding by on bicycles; at skate boarders…and squirrels. I don’t know if there has ever been a dog that actually caught a squirrel or a rabbit, but as a witness to my own dog’s attempts to catch the critters I have to believe that fat chance is the appropriate analysis of the situation. The fact that a dog will bark first is a small but vivid insight into their character as I doubt there are many dogs that really want to catch these little woodland creatures and the best way to assure themselves that they won’t is to bark crazily in warning before they begin a frantic and fruitless trace. I think in the history of “dogdom”, dogs were once fierce and fearless hunters. But then so were men. And our evolution has been inexorably bound. Although dogs are still trained to hunt, they give over their catch, rather gently in most cases, to the hands of men.

But Third Dog bounds with startling determination after small prey. The amazing thing about Third Dog is that as soon as the chase is over, after a moment or two of sniffing the ground and looking, quite bewildered up into the canopy of the trees in which the hunted creature has vanished; the chase is over and I doubt that the pup has much memory of what it was that brought her hurtling across the yard with such strange and primitive abandon. The animal having vanished, why not lie upside down on the grass and scratch her back. The chase itself was executed with complete commitment and purpose. She just can’t remember what they might have been. And they’ll always be something else to chase.

The barking can be a good thing. Howling at the moon certainly has its place in the living of any life. And the chase…well, the chase is the thing isn’t it. And the catching is rarely as important as we thought it would be. Half the time we all forget exactly what it was we thought we were after. I think perhaps admiring the good ground, enjoying the canopy of the trees and moving on to the next pursuit with inspired determination may be the thing.

Howl or no howl.

Fortunately soil temperatures are less fickle than air temperature.  The depths moderate the extreme fluctuations of the air and spring is a little more predictable subterrainially (that should be a word if it isn’t) speaking. Ground temperatures are what control things like the sprouting of bulbs, the breaking of dormancy and the emergence of weeds at least in a rooted seedling form. For those of you who want to discourage weed growth, the recent heavy rains may help. Crabgrass, for instance, is shallow rooted and the development of thick early spring roots in the lawn help choke it out. I’ll be experimenting with organic control of crabgrass this spring, applying corn gluten which discourages its development. I will say that everyone I talk to about this, nods reassuringly but I can’t help but think they shake their heads as I leave.  I actually think, without chemicals, it will take several years to rid my own lawn of crabgrass without chemicals. There is that dog that roams the backyard and eats and rolls in anything that has a strange odor.  I’m sure chemicals would qualify. The treatment I choose will include corn gluten and a sharp instrument in the ground digging at the ragged clumps of crabgrass in early summer. This will keep it from re-seeding. The roots are shallow so they dig out fairly easy and you might achieve a degree of machismo in the process. Good thick, healthy grass is the best way to control most lawn weeds.  Later in the year dandelions will offer a similar challenge.  But their even easier to spot with their blatant yellow and coarse leaves.  In the right circumstances dandelions can be quite attractive. In an otherwise green span of lawn they can be downright obnoxious in their pleasant  persistence; sort of like the census interviewer who is too nice to hang up on.

Shrubs and trees are awakening. There are magnolias already in bloom in Connecticut and along the shore. Forsythia is about to break through its tightened buds and offer that dependable, albeit often tiresome, signal of spring. Shrubs are showing the first signs of new growth. The sap is finished dripping and the syrup is bottled and labeled. The buds of the trees are swollen and seem to give off a strange energy; some subtle excitement of expectancy.  The trucks are on the highway hauling plants and trees from near and far. Easter will bring us forced azaleas and lilies that we’ll no doubt tire from before they finish forced bloom.  The ground is thawing and warming so that soon the rhododendrons and azaleas will begin a long sequence of extraordinary bloom. Remember when they’re done…to dead head and prune them back. They’ll be anxious to grow and I can almost assure you their final size will be too big for the spot you have in the garden for them. Prune new growth regularly.

Divide and conquer. It’s prime time to cultivate the soil in your perennial gardens.  It’s prime time to divide the abundant and overzealous perennials. If you’re not sure what to do with them tuck them in the corner of a vegetable garden.  It’ll be a few weeks in New England before you’re ready to introduce any hot weather crops. The open space of that good soil is a perfect place to tuck things away for proper consideration. Impulsive gardening usually fails, at least in overall composition.  Growing them on this way as divided clumps, and then transferring them to the garden after some consideration, makes a lot of sense.

But much of this is academic. As I look out of my window in northeastern Connecticut the streets are flooded and the low areas of my yard ware forming miniature ponds. The water pours in sheets across the windows of my sunroom. The dog sleeps at my feet. The gray clouds are buffered by even darker ones in the distance. She goes out only with great reluctance. The Connecticut River is at flood stage and the surrounding forests and farm land are saturated and shimmering with the swollen river… The gardens I cultivated on Sunday run with rivers of soil and mulch. It’s supposed to snow up north. The temperatures tonight are expected in the thirties. Much colder up north. Tomorrow is another day of rain and steel gray skies. But the sky is layered with the weather of other seasons. We will see three of them this week alone.

And the weekend promises…

…well, that spring, in all its contradictions, is finally here. And in a strange perfection the air will be gloriously warm while the ground stays cool for the moderate growth… the quiet stirring…the slow procession of season to season as if, about the entire phenomenon, nothing at all was new.

Focus and single-mindedness, traits I sorely lack, have never been better exemplified than by Third Dog. Besides doing her best to get our attention at any time of the day, her primary focus is a blue and yellow plastic circle known as a Frisbee. Frisbee is a word not dared uttered in our quiet home without a readiness for immediate action. The word inspires the frantic search and ends with the longing eyes over a mouth full of plastic cylinder which can turn our beautiful dog -– a saucer clenched in her jaws – into a cartoon character. I don’t think there is anything our puppy would rather do than to plunge headlong across our rear lawn in pursuit of the cylinder, suspended in its own innate and frenzied circular flight. The Frisbee is an important center of her life; her unrelenting focus admirable. But unless my wife or I are ready to indulge her in her passion, the word can’t be uttered. We have to spell it…F….R…I…

Once indulged, nothing stands in the way. Gardens are gone in the blink of the eye as she dashes across everything in her hot pursuit. And then once gathered in her jaw, she bounds back to us across the landscape and delivers it for another launch. She is, after all, a Retriever. In these moments, exclusively so.

Our second Golden would retrieve nothing. She would chase an item; examine it; and then leave it lying where it fell. She had no interest in the pickup and delivery of anything, however fascinating they might be. Second dog could fit four of five balls in her jaws, but she had no interest in depositing them anywhere specific. For Third Dog, on the other hand, the pickup and delivery are integral to the satisfaction of the task: a kind of canine Federal Express.

Finally exhausted from her joyful and relentless commitment to the task, she will find the cool brick of a garden path on which to rest among the Hostas and the Astilbes in the shade garden, well out of the full sun. She will hold the disc between her paws, contemplate its shape, density and texture… sometimes gnaw the cupped edges in a blissful exhaustion. And then, well rested, will look to resume the activity as if my wife and I have little else to do. And truthfully because of our own lack of focus; because we both have, at the same time a multitude of disparate tasks ongoing, none of which we ever seem to finish… or enjoy half as much as our dog enjoys her simple pursuit and return of the Frisbee… we are reminded to appreciate the simple perfection of a single pursuit accomplished well.

The simplicity and clear-mindedness of the item itself is a valid lesson. The Frisbee, a requisite item college students use to pass afternoons when they aren’t focused enough to study, has become a part of our recreational culture. Competitive leagues have grown around the cylinder…golf, football, baseball…. It’s been used for everything from physical therapy to that timeless effort to impress the opposite sex. It has sold countless millions for a very long time. And what it is evolves from the tossing an empty pie plate by the Frisbie Baking Company which operated in Bridgeport, Connecticut until 1958.The idea was actually developed and refined by a world War II veteran (a veteran of the infamous Stalag 13 POW camp) and went on to fame and infamy in the adolescence and adulthood of Baby Boomers and beyond.

The idea of the Frisbee is remarkably simple…perfectly clear. The design is perfectly simple.

Third Dog’s obsession is notable. There is something nearly blissful about it, like an accomplished musician lost in a violin solo. For the moment, nothing else matters. Her elation at its flight and contentment with its return to our hands provides – a sort of remarkable moment of focus in a too often unfocused and frenzied world.

I can’t believe there is not a profound lesson to be found in this; the practice, fulfillment and perfect completion of a simple task. There seems to be great joy in it. But I’m much too distracted to consider it for long. I have stuff to do. Much to juggle. Something else waiting…

And it always seems so important… and never done. Maybe that’s it. Do what you’re doing. Take some degree of elation in the fulfillment of the task well done. Embrace the moment as if it’s all there is…a cylinder across the sky to be chased and caught up with… to devour the movement  until the shadow and the substance are the same and , at least for the moment, that’s all there is.

If only all endeavors had those two points at which to begin and end the perfect arc; bearing so much satisfaction in their fulfillment.

Third Dog sits at my feet. My wife and I have to make sure we don’t utter the word Frisbee unless we are ready to throw. We are not ready. We are careful in what we say. One thing is clear. If Third Dog learns to spell, our life will change.

Pennisetum alopecuroides

In every season…every month,  nearly every week of the year really, a new star emerges on the stage of the landscape. Mid- to- late fall features such stalwarts as sedums and asters and chrysanthemums – amid the cornstalks and pumpkins – as the traditional stars. They’re dependable. And predictable, which for most gardeners is a good thing. But, to me, replacing these traditional acts this time of year as the real headliners, are the various Ornamental Grasses that have established an increasing presence in our gardens. From the understated Fescues(Festuca), to the overstatement of Porcupine Grass(Miscanthus sinensis “strictus’) these plants are nearly magical in the late autumn light and offer graceful motion, reflected and diffused light as they move across the fall sun and the autumn moon… and even sound, as in the autumn breeze they shift and settle like an uneasy audience at the opening of a new performance. The plants form grass blades of varied sizes and heights and a large palate of subtle colors.

The delicate foliage of Festuca Glauca – Blue Fescue – –is soft and subtle and forms a beautiful mat of silver texture. It stands alone or serves as an accent or the perfect foil for heavier foliage plants. Deep greens are deeper next to the silver. The best is brought out of blue, pink and purple asters when they are set in the company of this great silver foliage. For a slightly more bold presence; thicker blades of blue and a taller plant, the Blue Oat Grass( Helictitrichon) is a great substitute and can be spotted form a greater distance. “Staging” plants with point of view in mind is not unlike the staging of a room indoors, or for that matter, a theater stage.

The larger grasses can be magnificent “waves of grain”. They can be used as garden walls to separate the outdoor rooms of the yard or featured highlights in the landscape. The beauty of the grasses is that their function changes as they are cut back to ground level in winter or early spring and don’t reach their new potential until late summer and fall. The renewal of their dominance in the landscape is a welcome surprise. Miscanthus sinensis ‘Gracillimus’ or “Graziella’ can reach 5’ tall and the end of the grass stalks are covered with graceful fronds that can be silver to white. Fountain Grass (Pennisetum alopecuroides) is a less dominant clump and stays 3-4’ high, as does Feather Reed Grass (Calagrostis).

The beauty of the grasses is that they are different from traditional garden flowers in that it’s not all about color. The fall color of our surrounding woodland tends to overtake flower color this time of year and as the season goes on, the lingering flowers start to seem a little out of place…maybe fighting a losing battle like the tired last scene of an opera. The grasses on the other hand, hold their own against the majesty of the woods. And in the right circumstance, can even steal the show. And first snow can bend them…but they rarely break. And their character and role in the landscape changes with the first hint of winter… that first crack of cold air and the shiver of winter across graceful fronds that are rarely still.

articulate my thoughts about gardening and landscape – is often clearly in direct conflict with my work as a landscaper and gardener as well as all the other myriad of things by which I am so often distracted and occupied. Free time doesn’t really exist for me, as I’m sure it doesn’t for many of you. I am easily distracted…or maybe it’s consumed. So instead of keeping current, I find myself looking back across the season, which offers a different perspective. And perhaps in looking back, I can see a larger, somewhat skewed canvas.

The summer of 2009 from the vantage point of a landscape gardener is a little like a ship’s captain looking back at a rough sea through which he or she just successfully sailed. In the wake of my neglect of making entries in this on-line journal, I’ll make a humble attempt at a retrospective; compiling my thoughts, however skewed they might be by the new seasons already upon us. And because of the view, my thoughts are more about landscape than gardening. And the difference is significant.

Regarding our gardens, briefly: As it always is, June is one of the busiest months for the gardener. It’s the old kid in the candy shop scenario. The warm weather brings everything to bloom and, obvious to those who suffer from it, a frenzy of pollen as nature exercises its own inherent will to sustain itself. This year, that brief stint of summer like weather we had in early spring gave way to what seemed like two months of rain through June and July and overcast skies. And although water is obviously good for plants, too much can cause its own problems, manifest in root rot, damping off of seedlings,fungus, mold and all those intriguing life forms that might take hold in the landscape. Plants were lush and growing like crazy. Lawn stayed emerald green well into July when, at least in the east, they would begun their relaxation into brown but for the heroic efforts of the lawn aficianado. The intensity of flower color was magnified by the diffused light of the overcast days and by the time the sun finally made its stand in late summer, flowers for the most part were magnificent; made even moreso by the lush green of the accompanying foliage. August and September were very pleasant for the most part. Dry but cool in most of New England. Gardens flourished.

But reflecting back, I see landscape, not gardens. This begs the question, precisely what is landscape? And I think it may be all environments impacted by the efforts of human beings. Some positively…some not. And without careful reflection, impressions are what is left. In brief, here’s just a few impressions from a summer already behind us.

Yankee Stadium and The Bronx: Route 87 North once again closed to traffic; we take a circuitous route through the Bronx to find our way back in the direction of Connecticut. It is a beautiful day and the streets are alive with an entirely different rhythm than the one we are bound home to, and the one we just left inside the concrete cathedral of baseball called Yankee Stadium. The baseball field itself is a specific landscape. The perfect diamond, the blanket of green, the way the shadows drape the outfield and the contrasting frame of concrete and rows of blue seats. In the Bronx, it is truly the “diamond in the rough”. And now out in the “rough” every block has two or three trees plunged into the narrow sidewalks and they seem strangely insignificant among all the concrete and brick and graying, shattered asphalt. The branches lunge for the light of the street center and away from the row of apartments and busy shops. They seem to cast very little shade and rather took a glancing and insignificant blow at the sun and the gathered heat. But it makes me think of the importance of the presence of trees…“green space” in all of our living arrangements. If the tendency is to return to the urban village then we need to take back into the urban setting; the lessons learned in nature. It seems like such a simple antidote for these hot streets… the cool presence of foliage. The perfect exchange.

June: Gillette Stadium; home of The New England Patriots. The rain is relentless and I stand with my daughter in a sea of other sons and daughters waiting on line for a chance to sing a few lines for an audition to American Idol. My daughter, somewhat reluctant, decides to take her shot and I am honored to have a chance to stand with my beautiful daughter here and have these moments in the torrential and relentless rain.There is something beautiful here as well. I am struck by the sea of umbrellas in the slowly emerging silver dawn.It is, in its own way, quite beautiful.

The day doesn’t work out for her. She is not among those chosen to go on. A young man dressed in a pink tutu is; so we can’t take the disappointment seriously. And for me, and perhaps for her, it was never about that anyway. It turned out to be more about the drive there through the blinding rain, and standing together among a sea of umbrellas in the dawn; a chance to talk, to laugh. It was about the echo of spontaneous “gang-singing” in the concrete corridors of the stadium. It was about human beings in their environment. It was about human potential. And it was about landscape.

Some time later there is a feature in the Hartford Courant about a woman who covers her gardens with beautifully colored umbrellas in torrential rain to protect the flowers. The image is beautiful. There is a rhythm and texture to the scene. It is not about gardens, but I think it is about landscape.

Weeks later in Newport, Rhode Island. The sun is out full but as we drive down to the ocean it has vanished in a fog that cloaks the rocky cliffs. What emerges is only the etched lines of the ground and the shore and a rim of tall grass that lies still and bent separating the road from the beach. It is landscape.

Manhattan: We walk through the amazing oasis of Central Park. Reggae music drifts though the foliage from a concert over the bluff. We walk the edge of the island along the seaport. We sit in Bryant Park amid the gardens and the clanking glasses of a café and the street musicians. The rythmns, the patterns of light, the colors of awnings: the intersections of line and form, the separations, the distinctions of space and color. It is landscape. I walk to the arcitecturally distinct building next to the park and as I am about to enter, a tourbus passes and announces over the loudspeaker: “To our right is the nicest and cleanest restroom in all of Manhattan”. And with this information, both as I enter, and as I exit – I am, in truth, greatly relieved.

Harkness State Park

Of the summer’s experience, there are the beautifully restored gardens of Harkness State Park along Connecticut’s shore. The majesty of Lake Winnepausakee in New Hampshire. It is nature at its most grand and in its relationship to people. Not quite what John Muir called “ a surrender to nature’s magnificence” but a reverential relationship to the environment and the intersection between the natural world and the world of human life. An appreciation of the subtleties of the exchange between ordinary living and an extraordinary natural world. It is rhythm and color and line and form and sound. And it is everywhere.Landscape is a part of every day.And when I next put my pencil to paper in the effort to design a garden or a path the images return to me.

And I think that is landscape. Landcapes and life.

Not so fast. Enter Sandy.

Within ten minutes the money was gone. We left the room and when we returned there was no trace of the bills. We looked everywhere. Third Dog slept in the corner as we searched, looking at us across that black nose of hers with half opened eyes betraying no emotion. Very content… satisfied. And after a frantic search there was no other conclusion at which to arrive but the same one arrived at by a thousand third graders before us, referring to an unfinished homework assignment. The dog ate it. Black Thursday.

Black nose.

We never discovered any proof. Rather than searching financial records, we probed, in the ensuing days, her daily deposits…the canine fecal matter; those steaming piles nestled in the grass. We thought we’d find Ben Franklin’s face smiling from below… perhaps a piece of his spectacles as solid proof in the solid waste…or that stubborn Ulysses Grant; refusing to be digested just as he refused to leave Vicksburg. But we never found a thing. Not a trace. So there was no smoking gun…or in this case, steaming dung.

But there remains no other explanation.

I think the next $150.00 cash I leave on the counter will be thirty, five dollar bills. At least the shear amount of oily paper money involved would slow the process down and before the full financial crash; we might be able to save some cash. Surely Abraham Lincoln would not give in so easily to the primitive digestive track of an eleven month old Golden Retriever. Old Abe would come through in the end …so to speak.

Unlike some of the misguided innocents and the blatant thieves of Wall Street; those who have forced us to take pause and consider the ethics of an entire financial way of life; we forgive the black nosed puppy still licking her chops over something or everything; and she takes paws…and sets her black nose upon them and sleeps as if she knows no guilt and tomorrow will be another day of promise and interesting things to sniff and ingest. It reminds us of the primitive foundation of all economy… food; sustenance in exchange for work. If only we all couldn’t have just eaten the damn cash instead of investing it in the nebulous promise of high finance.

I guess we’ll never be sure of what happened to our money. Perhaps no more than the nation will ever completely understand what happened to its treasury and an entire economic system. But we know that as well-trained as Third Dog is becoming…the kitchen counter remains her domain. Paper holds an allure to our puppy just shy of soiled socks. And there is in fact, to a dog, little difference between dinner and dollars; cash and caviar.

Perhaps we’ll find the money one of these days. Perhaps it fell behind some counter and will be discovered by generations to come. But something in the twitching black nose and dark eyes of our dog tells us different. Maybe the answer lies with the Founding Father… with George Washington. Just how many singles could she really eat?

I’m not sure I want the answer to that.

The future of the species remains in doubt, but its presence in the spring landscape of New England remains extraordinary. Although we’ve led people to the varieties of the tree that are blight resistant (Kousa Dogwood etc.), we still plant the standard pinks and whites on demand, and their slightly diminished presence and shorter life span is still worth the effort.
The transformation of the spring is always astounding. Within forty eight hours I watched the buds of a Laceleaf Maple in my own gardens go from swollen bud to full and graceful leaf. The perennials that were simple basal growth and poor mounds of foliage peaking through the cracked winter soil are in full leaf and the foliage is swollen with spring and ready to provide a summer sequence of bloom. It’s time to cultivate around them, pull some weeds. It’s getting late in Connectcut but up north it’s still a great time to dig up the clumps and divide your perennials. Sedums and Hostas and Astilbes, Daylilies and Iris…can all be divided with a sharp shovel through the root system. Re-established the divided clumps in other parts of the garden…or store them for later. It’s a perfect time to give them away for a friend’s garden…or better yet; trade for another plant you admire in their garden.
It’s not too late to do some light pruning. Rhododendrons (including Azaleas) should be pruned right before they bloom or immediately after they bloom. It’s good to pull the spent flower blossoms and clean up the plant for the season. You can always prune off new growth. Try not to cut into “woody” growth. If you need to do so, you’re probably ready to remove and/or transplant the shrub. Almost everything is putting out a flush of new growth and can be pruned lightly.
Lawns are beginning to grow in. It’s always best to let the grass get four of five inches high before cutting the first time. And when you do cut, leave the cuttings in the lawn. The nitrogen held in the blades is restored to the soil and the tall grass with clippings can suppress crabgrass development.
Resist the urge to cut back the foliage of your bulb plants, despite the fact they might be finished flowering and appear unsightly. Bulbs restore nutrients through the slow degradation of the foliage. Pretty soon you’ll be able to plant annual flowers in front of the spent foliage and your garden will continue its ride through spring and into summer.
Pull the weed and get the roots. Before the 80 and 90 degree days, most weeds are pretty easy to pull. And there’s something very gratifying in the exercise.
So get the work done when you can, but don’t miss the spectacle. There is something about this time of year that transcends the garden. If we could explain exactly what it is we could probably solve the many mysteries of life and living. I think rather than spend too much time trying to figure it out, I’ll continue to embrace it…both its promise and the reminder of how beautifully fast and fragile is each season.

Inevitably, mixed warm weather and rain followed and the snow was gone within a week and the spring made a bashful and incremental appearance; sort of like a brief glimpse of a compelling, unrevealed character in a drama that leaves the audience longing for more. To stretch the metaphors to their logical absurdity; a wolf in sheep’s clothing perhaps.

The gardens and the general landscape emerge and vanish through all of this. We venture out to study the detritus of winter and already see the lime green sprouts of daffodils emerging in the wake of frozen waves of snow that lie on the edges of walkways and gardens like winter’s trophies. The frost emerges slowly from the ground and surfaces as mud to allow us another week of excuses and a hope for sunny, breezy days before we have to get too busy in the garden. It’s a perfect time to stay on high ground and begin to pick up the sticks and other matter left in the lawn and gardens; the leaves you may have left which have already begun to turn to compost; take account of surviving shrubs; swollen buds; light pruning that may be required. It’s not a bad time to kick a new edge on your beds with a good edging shovel and achieve the clarity of form that contributes to the compelling landscape. Examine the beds and the bare bones and imagine the impending color and emerging forms. As plants begin to peak through the warming ground, consider what needs dividing and where a good home for the divided plant might be. If you have a vegetable garden that’s not yet in use, it might be a good place to store the divided plants in early spring while you consider the new home (like an outdoor closet). Resist the impulse to add the plants randomly to other gardens or you’ll most likely be moving them again. Random acts of gardening are more common than not.

Take some notes. Sketch some ideas on paper. Prepare for the season ahead. It’s still early. There’s plenty of time for another snow storm and lots of weather that will allow you time to finish those indoor projects that you put off all winter. But get to work on them now. Because if you’re a gardener at all, your season is fast approaching and it will be very difficult to resist. There’s nothing quite like a sunny sixty degree day in March. Like today in Connecticut. One of the awesome qualities of a New England winter is great the anticipation of spring it provides. Embrace both seasons; something you can do particularly well in March. The lion may yet roar and take its share, but the lamb’s not far behind.

And then there’s April. So finish that last painting project. It won’t be long before you’re living outside again. The warm weather isn’t gone forever; it’s only been “on the lamb”. Well actually, the correct phrase “on the ‘lam’”. “On the lam” means “moving from place to place trying to avoid detection”. And that may define the unsettled season and colliding fronts much more accurately than any woolly mammal ever has.