THE LEAF

Tam Nguyen

Every season has a various beauty. The color of leaves changes so fantastically. Fall season has many leaves which fall off. It looks like a rain of leaves! Anyway, once in a while there is a tiny sound of the leaf that does not fall to the ground, the leaf that hangs on when others fall. So quite, so silent, so still. Because the leaf is so light, it seems to have no weight.
In a garden with many plants in spring, everything looks so green, smell so fresh. The new bulb is going up. Then the time comes for the leaf to change color, light green, dark green, gold, brown, and then falls off the branch.
Day by day, the leaves take the light from the sun, make energy for tree, and make free oxygen for the earth. The silent work is every moment. Then when the leaf fall off, we call it going home. After it finishes its job, it begins the new traveling to begin the new story.
It’s almost the shock of the spirit. The leaf broke up my spirit because the leaf makes my mind look at life from another angle. The human being, the earth, and the tree become a one thing. The spirit is in everything, everywhere. The beauty of life becomes a thing named by love. The fluttering leaf becomes the music with the melting melody. Nothing can stop it. It survives all over the time. The leaf touched the ground, played with wind. It is flying, and the flying never stops.
Deep inside the person, there is the empty space to fill with the beauty of life, for love, for trust, and hope life will be better. These are on our horizons, the sky bordering the mountain and the leaf changing its color. It is so deep in color, so close for anybody to touch, yet far enough for some people try not to understand about spirit. The leaf still is there. It is attending everywhere even in a quite village or a busy city. The leaf helps the spirit fly higher, further and faster, than the human can imagine about the time and space.

When the leaf falls from the branch of a tree, it begins a new travel tour. The wind will flow it up, and it will fly on the air. It is a time for leaf to find out the real world after it heard from the sun, clouds, and wind. The leaf will tour wherever the wind pushes it. It is not only the forest, village or city, it also expand all over. The leaf brought the song with the artist to make the life better. Just as the artist feels the melody and sings the song, so the blowing wind sings a melody.
Often the only person who is the artist can feel the melody of song and sing out loud. Gold color reminds him that the late evening for life, ready for everything, knowledge, experience and passion for life somewhere. Nothing can survive forever, just one moment will be forever. The end of tour, the leaf will drop on the earth and go back to root. It will change to organic nutrition of the earth. The earth will be porous for the plants. All the story of leaf’s tour, nobody knows exactly, but it makes the mystery for life. Often people do not understand the experience of
nature. They think the leaf is without meaning for human life, without caring or paying attention to the leaf.
Many forests disappear or turn into the desert when the leaves are gone. The green leaf brings hope for everybody. I wonder how many people ask for the gold leaf. Is it for dying or beginning new things, to do something or begin come back? The leaf is the reason we breathe every day. Even the good day or bad day, people need the small leaf to clean the air without touching or smelling it.
My tutor told me of Albert Camus’ words: “Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.”

Tam Nguyen is a Master Gardener and a student at NAU and The Learning Center where Dana Prom Smith, the editor of GARDENING ETCETERA, is her tutor. His email address is stpauls@npgcable.com.

THE GARDENS AT CASA ESCONDIDA

THE GARDENS AT CASA ESCONDIDA

Dana Prom Smith

A narrow, well-worn graveled lane leads to Casa Escondida, the “hidden house.” Finding the lane means meandering through three county roads, several ambivalent junctions, and some missteps. Several miles from the village of Chimayó in northern New Mexico, it is off the beaten path. While no one can completely get away from it all, Casa Escondida comes close: no telephones, no television, no radios, peace and quiet in what is a “rustic elegance.” Sadly, there was a wireless internet to check the stock market, a disquieting experience.

The quiet is the quiet of nature. A couple of crickets near the patio carried on an undecipherable dialogue. Soon, a whole chorus of several hundred chirping voices joined in the conversation. While sipping a glass of cooled chardonnay to smooth out the kinks from sitting on a long drive, my ears begin to hear the silences of nature: the winds rustling the leaves of the cottonwoods and whistling through the junipers. The birds were still singing as the sun began its descent.
Although dusk had settled around the patio, the sun was still shining on the tops of a couple of giant cottonwoods (Populus fremontii) in the distance. Bright with seemingly small red and golden Christmas tree lights, they glittered against the backdrop of the deepening blue of a New Mexico sky. It is the kind of scene which evokes a tension-releasing sigh.

A dinner at Rancho de Chimayó was an authentic taste of northern New Mexico. Nestled in the foothills of the Sangre de Cristo mountain range, the people of the villages are largely descendants of the Conquistadores, some identifying their lineage to the seventh and eighth generation. Flavored by the people of the region, the cuisine is often more Spanish than Mexican.
After dinner, the chirping of the crickets slowed while the yipping of the coyotes took over in a bloodthirsty ferocity euphemistically called the balance of nature. I was grateful for not being born a field mouse.

While asleep later that I night, we were awakened by the piercing screams and coughing barks of a bobcat, similarly engaged in the balance of nature. It was not more than ten yards from our patio in a thicket of trees and bushes. Sometimes, the wilderness comes too close.
At dawn, I heard a rooster. I realized I hadn’t been awakened by the crow of a cock since I was a boy. My job was to feed the chickens and gather the eggs, sometimes fleeing an irate hen. It was a very pleasant homecoming. I lay abed relishing the moment and the memories.
While sitting on the patio enjoying a pot of hot tea, fresh fruit, sausage, and a green chili omelet, I caught a flash of fire out of the corner of my left eye. Steeled by the drought that had plagued northern New Mexico, I turned to check to see whether or not a disaster was in the offing, but, no, it was the rays of the rising sun striking the tops of the cottonwoods in the distance. They glowed for one glorious moment and then no more.

Looking straight out from the patio lay a small cultivated garden fit for a dry climate, then a lawn of mown weeds and grasses, and finally a wild thicket of Siberian elm saplings, junipers, piñon pines, a maple emblazoned in red, and finally in the background those giant cottonwoods. It was a panoply of colors, sizes, and shapes. A truth dawned on me. A southwest garden is as much about the wild as it is about order and pattern. What doth it profit to study a world we know when the mystery of the unknown is before our eyes?
In the small strip of a cultivated garden were honeycomb butterfly bushes, two small yuccas, and a couple of stonecrop bushes with their burgundy flowers in full bloom.

To the right of the patio was the center piece of the garden. Like a time-worn obelisk, an ancient juniper abided, its age-roughened bark, hacked and pruned, a few tuffs of new life emerging here and there. I had found a compadre.

Copyright 2011 © Dana Prom Smith

Dana Prom Smith, editor of GARDENING ETCETERA for the Arizona Daily Sun, emails at stpauls@npgcable.com.

THE ANSWER MAN

THE ANSWER MAN: What’s Your Problem?

The Rev. Dana Prom Smith, S.T.D., Ph.D. (10/3/2011)

This time of the year, many people ask questions about planting bearded irises.

Q. Spent big bucks on iris bulbs. Missus told me to fix up the front yard. Told me I was gonna get cold sardines for breakfast if I didn’t get a move on. Said that old, rusty plow “just doesn’t cut the mustard anymore,” least ways not since some Master Gardener moved in next door. Kinda scowls at my yard. Anyways, all I got was green spikes, no flowers. Told me they didn’t need much care, and that’s just what they got.

A. Your sentences don’t have subjects, just verbs and objects, like imperatives and commands. You must’ve been traumatized by your drill sergeant. They never use subjects, either. Anyway, they aren’t bulbs, but rhizomes. “Little care” doesn’t mean “No care.” If those rhizomes were your children, you’d be charged with child neglect and tossed in the hoosegow. Here are some guidelines about parenting rhizomes.
You feed children. Irises are fed about 6-8 weeks before they bloom and after their blooms are gone. No lawn fertilizer. Too much nitrogen. Nitrogen for iris is like candy for children. It rots their rhizomes, instead of their teeth. Use bone meal or super-phosphate because phosphorous makes for root growth. All root, they need lots of phosphorous.
Next is potassium. You need potassium for your cardio-vascular system just like irises need it for their health and growth.
I’m sure you make your children clean their rooms and make their beds. Irises need clean beds and rooms. They need weeds picked, just like you don’t let your children hang around a bunch of delinquents.
Finally, you don’t want your children wasting their energies in frivolous pursuits, like video games. Children need discipline just like irises. After the irises have bloomed, cut the flower stocks close to the ground. This is allows their energy to go back into the rhizome instead of frittering it away.
Your wife is right. That rusty old plow is an eyesore. You aren’t a farmer anyhow. The proper plural for iris is irides. Iris is a Greek word meaning rainbow. Dress up your front yard with rainbows, and your wife won’t serve you cold sardines for breakfast. Maybe, even that Master Gardener with the creepy hat will give you a hand.



Q. My name is Abigail. My husband, Rusty, thinks that a front yard of gravel, weeds, and a rusty old plow is the cat’s pajamas. He says it celebrates the early days of Flagstaff when “men were men” whatever that means. I threatened him with cold sardines for breakfast, just like early cowboys ate, if he didn’t get off his big, fat behind watching “Ice Road Truckers” and fix the front yard. Our new neighbor just shakes his head. His wife is real nice and friendly and suggested that the easiest thing to grow were bearded irises. Said they were quite beautiful. She even said that they could be planted in groups right in the middle of that damned gravel. Rusty dug’em in, but they just kind of pooped out. What do you suggest?

A. I fear that Rusty didn’t plant them the right way. You don’t dig’em in but settle them in, just like you’re putting your children to bed with a light blanket over them and just their heads sticking out. First, prepare the bed, by digging in compost, phosphorus, and potassium, and then let it sit for a week or so. Then make a small mound and settle the rhizomes into the bed, covering them with a thin layer of soil while leaving the leaves above the soil. Then for the first few weeks water them so that the soil is damp, but not wet lest the rhizomes rot. This should be done toward the last of summer or the beginning of fall so that the rhizomes will have time to develop roots before winter sets in.
Cold sardines may be better for Rust’s health, but biscuits and gravy, bacon and eggs are better motivators. Napoleon said, “An army marches on its stomach.” Don’t let the Master Gardener’s hat put you off.

Copyright © Dana Prom Smith 2011

Dana Prom Smith edits the column GARDENING ETCETERA for the Arizona Daily Sun and can be emailed at stpauls@npgcable.com..

HEAD COLDS AND WEEDS

HEAD COLDS AND WEEDS

The Rev. Dana Prom Smith, S.T.D., Ph.D. (8/27/2011)

Sneezing people with head colds are an unwelcome sight. They should stay in bed with hot chicken soup, but, no, they appear in public, sometimes at close quarters, spraying everyone in sight. With rheumy eyes and runny noses they are a lot like weeds. Sans merci.

A lot of gardening involves weeding. A weed is an unwelcome plant. It generally is fast growing, ingenious, and supernaturally resourceful.

When the Romans conquered England in 41 A.D., they brought with them the scotch thistle (Onopordium acanthium) which has its origins in the lands around the Mediterranean. It eventually hopped over Hadrian’s Wall, the Roman barrier defending Roman England from the Scots to the north. In addition to the scotch thistle, the Romans also introduced bathing to England.


It flourished in Scotland where it proved itself a defense against Viking invaders. In a nighttime sneak attack upon Scotland, the Norse stumbled into a thicket of scotch thistles. Their cries of pain awakened the inhabitants who drove them back into the sea. It was imported into the United States as an ornamental shrub because it’s flowers are beautiful.

Now it has become an invasive, noxious weed, especially in the West where it has become a barrier to cattle. I found a thicket of scotch thistles in a vacant lot near my house and set about uprooting them, a task which requires heavy, leather gloves along with full body armor. The Latin phrase Nemo Me Impune Lacessit (No One Injuries Me Unpunished) is on the national emblem of Scotland along with the scotch thistle. By the way, after pulling them, put them in a plastic garden bag and dispatching them to the county dump. Sans merci.


Another oddity is that it is a cousin to the artichoke (Cynara scolymus), both being members of the tribe Cynareae which takes its name from the Greek word for dog because their bracts look like the teeth of a snarling dog. It’s a delightful vegetable with anti-oxidant and anti-cholesterol benefits. Artichokes can be grown in Flagstaff just as can scotch thistles; however, while the artichokes grown here are beautiful to behold, they aren’t nearly as tasty as those grown in Castroville, California. Bon appétit.

Another member of the tribe Cynareae is the Centaurae diffusa, commonly called the diffuse knapweed which in the fall and winter turns into the tumbleweed. It, too, has snarling dog’s teeth. The word cynic comes from the Latin word for dog, cynicus. Cynics are toxic, baring their ideological teeth, claiming that everything is rotten save themselves.


The diffuse knapweed is a true cynic because it poisons the soil around it so that nothing else can grow save itself, eliminating any competition. It’s called allelopathy which means that a plant can release chemicals that inhibit the development and growth of neighboring plants. Just as cynics poison a social environment, so do diffuse knapweeds poison a horticultural environment, eliminating their competition by toxicity.


One plant can produce 18,000 seeds which are spread by the wind as its tumbles and sneezes over the land. A genuinely ugly plant, it is scraggly, prickly, and unappealing, with no known benefits. If it had been available to Moses, he surely would’ve used it as a plague.

When destroying it, it should be rooted out before it goes to seed, plant and roots, put into plastic garbage bags, and dispatched to the Environmental Services (garbage can). Sans merci.

And then there is cheat grass (Bromus tectorum), a truly despicable and aptly named form of vegetation. With its lateral roots it sucks up moisture from the soil, depriving other vegetation of moisture. Capable of displacing every thing else, especially native vegetation, it is easily combustible, making it a fire danger. A seedy profligate, it grows almost anywhere in the most miserable of soils, especially soils that have been disturbed. The best thing to do is pull it as soon as it is seen. A native of Asia Minor, it was imported with bales of alfalfa and has no known adversaries.


As with the common cold, the Scotch thistle, diffuse knapweed and cheat grass have arrived, and they’re sneezing. Sans merci.

Copyright © Dana Prom Smith 2011

Dana Prom Smith edits the column GARDENING ETCETERA for the Arizona Daily Sun. His email address is stpauls@npgcable.com.

PINK SIERRA CURRANTS, RED ELDERBERRIES, & CHOKECHERRIES

The Rev. Dana Prom Smith, S.T.D., Ph.D. (7/25/2011)

One of the most splendid meals I’ve ever eaten was California golden trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss,) roasted over a campfire, and a cobbler of pink Sierra currants (Ribes nevadense.) Every summer for about ten years, I took young people from my church backpacking in the High Sierra along the John Muir Trail. We packed freeze-dried food which we divvied up amongst the backpackers. An over-privileged student wearied by his forty pound pack dumped his share of the food over the side of the trail. We were one day short of food.


While protecting the offender from the wrath of the others, I began scouting the forest for forage. Remembering my military survival training, I found watercress (Nasturtium officinale) and edible grubs and insects. Fast-food addicts, they all said, “Ugh! Yuk!” Just below a sub-alpine lake, I spied a thicket of pink Sierra currants with its tasty blue-black berries. Along with a couple of non-fishing volunteers, the offender was sent off into the thicket to pick the berries. Those with fishing gear went along with me to the lake and stream to fish for our dinner.


We soon had our limit. I solicited all the graham crackers from the group, and we made a cobbler with the berries. We ran pliable branches from creek-side bushes through the trout from mouth to tail, roasted them over the fire, eating them like sweet corn on the cob.

All of which brings us to our yards, not in the High Sierra, but on the Colorado Plateau, especially berries for wildlife and birds. Pink Sierra currants do quite well in Flagstaff. A California native, it’s found in forests from 3,000 to 10,000 feet. Its berries are sweet, tart, and edible. It thrives in climate akin to Flagstaff’s. It survives both drought and flooding and prefers the company of pine trees.

A deciduous shrub about three to five feet high, it flowers from April through July with white and pink blooms. In the summer, its fruits hanging in six inch cascades are favored by both birds and human beings. Its weeping branches are without thorns, making it safe for children. If unavailable in our local commercial nurseries, it can be ordered online at http://www.laspilitas.com.


Next in our list of food for birds is the red elderberry (Sambucus racemosa.) However, its berries and plant are slightly toxic to human beings, producing a derivative of cyanide. For this reason, children should be kept from playing with the plant, flowers, and berries. However, with careful preparation a delightful cordial and jelly may be made from the berries.


It can grow into either a clump several feet high or a small tree. It favors well-composted soil and regular watering. The green leaves are either oval or oblong. In the late spring its cream-colored flowers bloom in large clusters followed by small black, blue-black, or red berries. Both the flowers and the bush itself are slightly unpleasant to the nose but charming to the eye, especially when in bloom and fruiting. More importantly, it is attractive to birds and particularly winsome to doves.


Not to be forgotten is the western chokecherry (Prunus Virginia) which produces beautiful pendulous clusters of creamy white flowers from April to July. The flowers eventually turn into astringent red and dark purple-black berries ¼ to ½ in size. The darker, the less astringent. The sour taste is the reason for the word “choke.”


The plant including its seeds is toxic to humans and also to horses and other animals with segmented stomachs. With the exception of the flesh of the berries it also produces a form of cyanide when eaten. Along with the red elderberry mentioned above, it makes an excellent hedge from twelve to twenty feet high, bringing privacy to the garden.


Shade tolerant, it needs full sun to produce berries good for food. Happily for Flagstaff, it is moderately drought tolerant. The berries have been a major food for many Native American tribes and were often used in pemmican. Also, they can be used for wine and jellies; however, mostly its fun watching the birds eating the berries.

Copyright © Dana Prom Smith 2011

Dana Prom Smith edits GARDENING ETCETERA for the Arizona Daily Sun, and can be emailed at stpauls@npgcable.com and blogs at http://highcountrygardener.blogspot.com.

DRAGON FLIES: Winged Jewels in the Garden.

Freddi Steele

All that glitters is rare in the garden. A shimmering spring frost can encase hardy and delicate plants alike, a greeting from Mother Nature that the humidity is up but the temperature is below freezing. Glistening dew may welcome us when we get our morning paper or walk the dog, hinting of the monsoon to come. Silken threads of spiderlings, ballooning on the breeze across the yard, may glint in the sun. Dazzle is unusual where we exercise our green thumbs. As gardeners, though, we know there are always exceptions. Enter the insect world’s largest sparklers – dragonflies and their kin.
Included in the insect order Odonata (“toothed ones”), dragonflies and their relatives, damselflies, are the biggest insects found to date in the fossil record. Discovered in sediments in Europe and the American Midwest, wingspans of two and a half feet were common for these creatures, which coexisted with yard-long ancient scorpions during the Carboniferous period ending 299 million years ago. Modern dragonflies have wingspans of up to four inches. Found worldwide and normally associated with warmer climates, dragonflies have been sighted north of the Arctic Circle since 2007, possibly due to global warming. Anecdotally dragonflies are believed to fly 60 miles per hour (mph); they have been more accurately clocked up to 34 mph. There are approximately 447 dragonfly species in the US, with 63 species identified in Coconino County (http://www.azodes.com/main/checklist.asp).
Dragonflies and damselflies usually share airspace over freshwater ponds, lakes, and streams, though they can be spotted far from water. Dragonflies are the larger of the two, with two pairs of wings attached perpendicularly to their bodies and looking like miniature “high-wing” planes. Damselflies are smaller, daintier, with wings that lie parallel to their bodies when not in use. Both dine on gnats, flies, mosquitos, spiders, and mites, though feasting on our favorite pollinators (bees, moths and butterflies) is not unusual.
As insects, dragonflies have an exoskeleton, a segmented body, and six jointed appendages. Their legs are used for clinging to vegetation and grasping prey and arn’t effective for walking. Females lay eggs near or in water, which hatch out into nymphs and mature into adult dragonflies. Two anatomical features distinguish them from other insects. The first is their huge eyes, made up of thousands of simple eyes, enabling them to see almost 360 degrees and making them excellent hunters. The second is an extendable jaw or mask, equipped with claws, which shoots out like the deadly lower mandible of the extraterrestrial creature in “Alien”, grabbing prey in an inescapable grip. Dragonflies and damselflies occur in an array of colors: blue, green, black, white, red and orange, with females being less colorful. Dragonflies and damselflies do not sting or bite, but their nymphs may.
Intrigued by these winged gems? Try creating a dragonfly garden. All it takes is a flat water container (like a birdbath), some tall grasses or bulbs (like irises), and sun, some of the same elements used to attract birds. For more information on how to design a dragonfly-friendly space, see HGTV’s website http://www.hgtv.com/landscaping/dazzling-dragonflies/index.html. Can’t put in a dragonfly plot? Visit these aerial artists in or near Flagstaff: Elderberry Pond in the Arboretum at Flagstaff (opens April 1st for the season); Francis Short Pond near Thorpe Park; Kachina Wetlands in Kachina Village. “Dragonfly season” is between May and November.
My fascination with dragonflies began in the summer of 2000 while training for the Tucson Marathon. At the time I lived and worked at the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. On early mornings I would run the seven miles to Hermit’s Rest. Several times I was suddenly surrounded by a swarm of Flame Skimmers, large dragonflies with red and clear wings and red bodies. They would dart around me for about a minute, and then while most would zip away, one or two would fly in formation beside me at the edge of the road – my personal “Dawn Patrol”. After several minutes, they would disappear into the roadside cliff rose, chasing honey bees. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear they were extraterrestrials...

(Freddi Steele is a Master Gardener and a former naturalist with the National Park Service. Dana Prom Smith edits GARDENING ETCETERA. His email address is stpauls@npgcable.com.)

A CHILD’S GARDEN OF ISLES
The Rev. Dana Prom Smith, S.T.D., Ph.D. (7/18/2011)

Suzannah and Andrew Libby’s garden is reminiscent of Vincent Van Gogh’s Memory of the Garden at Etten and his Gardens at Arles. Serendipitously, Van Gogh is Suzannah’s favorite painter. When I first saw the garden, the morning was clear. The sky was one of Flagstaff’s breathless blues, deep and true, and the temperature was comfortably warm though slightly chilly around the edges. Sitting under a canopy seemingly suspended in midair, we drank tea and talked. And a pleasure it was to talk with an intelligent and gifted woman: an artist, a gardener, and a lover of children.

Suzannah envisions her garden as a canvas on which she has created a series of isles, not just plots, but raised islands floating in a sea of green grass amongst stream beds of smooth pebbles. Looming above the canopy is a venerable maple and toward the back of the garden is an immense willow along with fruit trees, both new and old.



Near the front is a bed, called the fairie garden, surrounded by a mud and wattle fence, the mud concrete and the wattle thin sticks of bamboo. Looking like some kind of primitive dwelling with walls slightly askew and out of kilter, the bed is filled with berries, herbs, and flowers, a pot-pourri of tastes, sights, and aromas of lavender, mint, and lemon balm.

Further down the garden isles of color are strewn with yellow primroses and black-eyed Susans, others day lilies and red poppies, and still others harebells. With few straight lines one is drawn further down a wandering path to find something new just beyond the next turn.



At the beginning of the garden, the light is bright and clear as though there were a giant hole in the sky. Slowly, as the eye tracks toward the rear, the light becomes more dappled, and finally in the back it is shaded and dark. It is as though one were being gradually drawn into a shadowed mystery.

Suzannah, herself, is something of a mystery. Her life has not been a straight line, but one resembling her garden. Raised in Las Vegas, her father was contractor with an artistic flair, building their swimming pool with a huge red rose painted on the bottom of the pool. From there she went to the University of California at Santa Barbara to study art and then on to the Parsons School of Design in New York City. After a peripatetic and painterly journey as an artist, she landed in Portland, Maine, where she met her husband, Andrew, an artist in wood and music. Their daughter Lovenia was born in Portland.

Wanting to be near her family, they settled on Flagstaff which recalled the woods of Maine. They also wanted a place where they belonged. After a life of wandering exploration, they wanted rootedness.

Close to completing her bachelor’s degree in Integrative Art from Prescott College, she has found her purpose as an artist as well as a place to fulfill that purpose. She creaated a children’s garden pre-school, called Gartendale, modeled after the Waldorf approach to education of Rudolf Steiner. Small children learn by experience, instead of concepts and ideas: thus a garden becomes a school room in which a child experiences nature at every turn.

What better place for this kind of education than a child’s garden of isles? It is an education through touching, feeling, smelling, seeing, digging, and exploring. The happiest memories of many adults are often those explorations as children of gardens or a wilderness along with family members. Those early experiences are also the shaping ones, ones that began lives of exploration, of finding out, of taking care, of traveling through the shadowed mysteries. A garden is where we connect with the fundamentals.



Suzannah and Andrew’s garden leads the eye from light, touch, color, and aroma to those of shadows of what is yet to be known of outer space, inner minds, and the immensity of life. What better grounding for such a journey is there than smelling herbs, picking the berries, enjoying the flowers, and playing in the dirt?

For more information see: www.gartendale.com

Copyright © Dana Prom Smith 2011

THE CASE OF THE PURLOINED PAMPAS GRASS
The Rev. Dana Prom Smith, S.T.D., Ph.D. (7/11/2011)

A clump of pampas grass was purloined from the Olivia White Hospice Gardens. So far, the usual suspects deny any participation in or knowledge of the theft.

One thing is known. The theft was accomplished by sophisticated botanists. The pampas grass was removed with surgical skill. The hole left by the death of the pampas grass was expertly filled, and a buried drip line was carefully restored. Thus, the search is focused on horticulturally trained thieves, botanical burglars adept at theft in the dark of night.

One thing is certain. The purloined pampas grass was not an inside job since all of the volunteer gardeners at the Olivia White Hospice Gardens have expressed dismay and disappointment at its removal. One person, at one time active in the gardens who previously expressed displeasure with the pampas grass, has been questioned but has firmly denied knowledge of or connection with the theft.

The issue of the pampas grass gets to the heart of one of the vexing questions about gardening in Flagstaff and the high country: invasive, exotic species. Was it, to quote Asa Gray, the famous American botanist of the 19th century and friend of Charles Darwin, one of those “intrusive, pretentious and self-asserting foreigners?” Was the pampas grass a magnificent, toxic weed?

It fits the definition of weed. It’s invasive. It sucks up scare water. It overtakes defenseless native plants and grasses. It is a threat. Richard Mabey, the English botanist calls weeds: “Shape-shifters” with speed, ingenuity, and “almost supernatural resourcefulness.”

However, it’s alleged that this particular pampas grass wasn’t guilty of any of these crimes. Several horticultural experts claim that this particular pampas grass was sterile. Sitting in its corner of the garden, it is claimed that it was much like a castrated male lion lounging in the shade of a tree on the veldt sporting his splendid plumage. Was it such a clear and present danger to the gardens of Flagstaff that immediate covert action was required by horticultural “black ops”? Many think so.

Like many clandestine black operations, these “black ops” may have been ignorant of the alleged impotence. They clearly thought that the pampas grass was an immediate threat, especially now that Flagstaff is overwhelmed by toxic, invasive, exotics. If people dig up plants at will, chaos will ensue. No gardens or gardeners would be safe. Gardeners would have to ride shotgun on their gardens.

The case of the purloined pampas grass raises the issue of non-native plants and grasses. Do people have a right to grow toxic weeds? Apparently, they do. The City is seemingly impotent, claming that people are free to do what they like in their yards, except growing very high weeds. How about marijuana? HOA’s seem more concerned about derelict garbage cans than they do toxic weeds. Does the list of targets include water hogging grass lawns, such as at City Hall, NAU, or the golf courses in sequestered communities of the rich?

Since black operations presuppose deniability, there is a long list of denials and know-nothings. A person who wasn’t authorized to speak but spoke, nevertheless, on condition of anonymity said that there must be a vast horticultural conspiracy of silence, reaching to the highest places. The culprits may never be identified.

The “black ops” apparently took to heart Barry Goldwater’s famous nostrum: “Extremism is the defense of liberty is no vice, and moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.” So, is botanical theft a moderate virtue or an extreme vice?

Martin Luther King, Jr., said that if people choose to disobey an unjust law, they should own up to it. One of his great pieces is a “Letter Written from Birmingham Jail.” Since the perpetrators already covered themselves in darkness, it is unlikely they will come into the light. If they do, they can publish a manifesto, but it must be well-written, not a self-righteous farrago.

So far no one has. We are left with a missing clump of pampas grass, the threat of “intrusive, pretentious and self-asserting foreigners,” and the possibility of botanical “black ops” digging up plants wherever and whenever their fancy suits.

Copyright © Dana Prom Smith 2011

Dana Prom Smith whose email address is stpauls@npgcable.com edits the column GARDENING ETCETERA in The Arizona Daily Sun.

PEONIES: Hallelujah Time

Puka Lewicky

Stand up. It’s time for the Hallelujuh Chorus. My red peony opened its golf ball sized buds and has huge blooms five inches in diameter. My ears are ringing with the joyful music of Handel's Messiah. Anything that survives Flagstaff's winter and spring deserves a celebration.

I’ve been a passionate gardener in Flagstaff for over thirty-five-years. I grew up in northern Ohio where everything grows. I learned to love gardening from my Polish family. Ohio sweet corn is the best.
Delicious tomatoes grow there. My father taught my siblings and me to plant over one hundred trees around our home on 18 acres. The Colorado blue spruce and deciduous trees grew to be over fifty feet tall. We created a forest. Our fruit trees bore fruit.

My mother had azaleas, and my grandparents grew a huge vegetable garden without elk. Flagstaff proved to be a challenge. But I couldn’t stop growing things.

My husband's parents moved to Arizona about twenty years ago. My mother-in-law, Irene, presented me with a special gift, her beloved pink peony. It wouldn’t grow in Sun City. Peonies require a winter climate to satisfy dormancy requirements. Ah Ha! Maybe it would be happy in Flagstaff. Irene's peony is now fifty years old. It has given me spectacular pink blossoms with a subtle fragrance.

It didn’t have ants on it this year so no blooms. But my younger red peony had ants on it so it had beautiful blooms. The ants are a controversy. Some people say they have nothing to do with peonies blossoming, but I’ve watched them now for many years and believe the ants are important. The resident elk and deer in my neighborhood leave the peonies alone. What delightful news!

Peonies need well-draining, amended soil, and abundant sunshine. They appreciate spring moisture. And they don't mind the altitude. I live north of town at a higher elevation. Peonies prefer slightly acidic to neutral pH soil. Perennials need a little extra preparation when planting, but the rewards are worth it. They can live to be 100 years old. They truly become a member of the family. They don’t like to be crowded. Prepare the planting site by digging two feet wide by one and a half feet deep holes. Space the plants three to four feet apart. They can grow to be three to four feet high. Fill the hole with one foot of good loam. Plant the rootstock so that the crown is two inches below the soil level with the eyes (sprouts) pointing upwards. Carefully shovel in loose soil around the rootstock.

Water well. They won't bloom if planted too deep or in the shade. Once established, they only need water once a week. Before they bloom, I use a wire form around them so they do not fall from the heavy blooms. In the fall, I cut down the stalks to about two or three inches. I don't use the stalks for mulch. I weed them by hand so as not to disturb the roots. Prepare them for winter by mulching with our abundant pine needles or clean straw. The peony foliage is dark green and very attractive in the garden. Let the foliage thrive all summer for blooms next year.

I feed them when I remember with a blooming plant food. I use Ferti-lome or Miracle-Gro. The blooms are great for cutting arrangements. Peonies come in a variety of colors to suit every taste. Once they are mature, they can be divided. but they prefer to stay in one place. Years ago, I moved Irene's peony, and it wasn't too upset. This May's freezing temperatures prompted me to cover my two peonies. I used quilt batting from the local fabric store. The ants seemed to appreciate their nightly blankets.

My dear Irene is no longer with us, but her amazing peony lives on. I’m grateful for all those who’ve gone before me and taught me the love of gardening. Gardening is truly good for the soul.

Puka Lewicky is a veteran gardener in Flagstaff. The photograph is courtesy of Puka Lewicky.

Dana Prom Smith, editor of GARDENING ETCETERA, Arizona Daily Sun, can be emailed at stpauls@npgcable.com.

STORY OF TAM

Tam Nguyen

Tam was deaf. It was struggle time for her life. She got anger from her siblings and people around her without understanding the reason. Her Dad took her to see Doctors, but she never got full treatment. They gave her antibiotic for infections, but it never a full core for that. She also didn’t know why she got her hearing lost. No explanations why it was. Nothing for hope of treatment.

One person to hang around her was her Dad. He told her, “It is not important what happened to you. It is more important how can you deal with it.” He was patient, talking close face to face, and taught her to listen to sounds around her by feeling vibrations, by her heart, by hearing things with eyes, and by her spirit hearing without ears.

Her friends were grass, flowers, trees, insects, and birds. Those friends never ever laugh at her or mad at her, either. They taught her to be patient as her Dad in listening to the moving around of sounds. She put all her senses on. She imagined in her brain a sense of an aura she got without understand what it was.

Her Dad gave her a compensation for without hearing by ears, opening a third eye for her to feel life still wonderful and meaningful. She learned to love garden. She enjoyed with garden and watched the spider work hard and patiently to make his web and caught prey on spider’s web.

She learnt about sounds by looking at plants. Depending on force of wind, the plants move gentle or strong. If she stand, she will feel the wind on her face and the blowing of her hair. That was the way her Dad describe the sounds to her. Rustle of leaves, clamorous branches of trees attached to each other. Even singing of bird is a melody of song.

She hated herself. She hated to be deaf. She just felt confident with herself at a private corner of the house. She spent most of time by herself. She did not care about noise or people surround her. Other children ran and played, but she stayed inside herself. Run and play cannot study. In her deafness, she learnt to be student.

That was also the reason her uncle thought that she didn’t like him. Her uncle asked her a favor, but she did not hear what he told her. She did not respond to him or acted something to him. Her uncle was so angry. She not know why or who made him angry until he came and pointed to her face. She hold all her emotion and put deep inside her soul. She really wanted to punch to her uncle, but she hold her hands back. She wanted to fight back, and screaming back.

Her Dad had to come and talked to both.

Her dad supported her. He talk to her close face to face. He told her to get out into the world for travel miles far away with a first single steps. He took her with nature and taught her a meaning of life. And he gave her hope that a miracle will be appear to her that she will see the right situation and right person will fix it for her. Or choose an optimistic thinking for living. She took trips hiking with him, doing farms job, and take care goats for him. He kept telling her about technology, developing science will be changed. A girl, she did not have concepts in that but years later she did. She got a passion from him. When she grow older, she look back on her Dad and realize he taught her to meditate. He took her out of her corner and let her walk to a farm, to a city for college, and now she stayed at another country.

Her hearing got fixed in America. Proof for her about things her Dad told her. She appreciated her Dad changed her life by education in a right way. Deafness and her Dad gave her love of garden, life to study, meditation.

Tam Nguyen, a Master Gardener, is a student at NAU and the Literacy Center where Dana Prom Smith is her tutor. Also a Master Gardener, he edits GARDENING ETCETERA and can be reached at stauls@npgcable.com.

WHAT’S YOUR PROBLEM?

Dana Prom Smith

Q. Spent big bucks on iris bulbs. Missus told me to fix up the front yard. Said that old, rusty plow “just doesn’t cut the mustard anymore,” least ways not since that damned Master Gardener moved in next door. Keeps looking at me like I was a primitive, kind of weird like. Anyways, all I got was spikey green, no flowers. Told they didn’t need much care, and that’s just what they got.


A. They aren’t bulbs, but rhizomes. “Little care” doesn’t mean “No care.” If those rhizomes were your children, you’d charged with child neglect and tossed in the hoosegow. Here are some guidelines about parenting rhizomes. Ideal children, they don’t demand a lot. They’re not dependent personalities. They’re real self-starters.
You feed children. Irises are fed about 6-8 weeks before they bloom and after their blooms are gone. No lawn fertilizer. Too much nitrogen. Nitrogen for iris is like candy for children. It rots their rhizomes, instead of their teeth. Use bone meal or super-phosphate because phosphorous makes for root growth. All root, they need lots of phosphorous. Think bone meal.
Next is potassium. You need potassium for your cardio-vascular system just like irises need it for their health and growth.

I hope you make your children clean their rooms and make their beds. Well, irises need clean beds and rooms. They need weeds picked, just like you don’t let your children hang around with juvenile delinquents and other morally challenged youth.
Finally, you don’t want your children wasting their energies in frivolous pursuits, like video games. Children need discipline just like irises. After the irises have bloomed, cut the flower stocks close to the ground. This is allows their energy to go back into the rhizome instead of frittering it away.
Your wife is right. That rusty old plow is an eyesore. You aren’t a farmer anyhow. The proper plural for iris is irides. Iris is a Greek word meaning rainbow. Dress up your front yard, and your wife won’t serve you cold sardines for breakfast anymore. Maybe, even that weird looking Master Gardener with the creepy hat will give you a hand if you’re lucky.


Q. My name is Abigail. I’m married to a man named Rusty who thinks that a front yard of gravel, weeds, and a rusty old plow is the cat’s pajamas. He says it celebrates the early days of Flagstaff when “men were men” whatever that means. I threatened him with cold sardines for breakfast, just like early cowboys ate, if he didn’t get off his big, fat behind watching “Ice Road Truckers” and fix the front yard. Our new neighbor just shakes his head. His wife is real nice and friendly and suggested that the easiest thing to grow were bearded irises and that they were quite beautiful. Even said that they could be planted in groups right in the middle of that damned gravel. Rusty dug’em in, but they just kind of pooped out. What do you suggest?


A. I fear that Rusty didn’t plant them the right way. You
don’t dig’em in but settle them in, just like they’re putting your children to bed with a light blanket over them and just their heads sticking out. First, prepare the bed, by digging in compost, phosphorus, and potassium, and then let it sit for a week or so. A noble flower, irises require a fine bed. Then make a small mound and settle the rhizomes into the bed, covering them with a thin layer of soil while leaving the leaves above the soil. Then for the first few weeks water them so that the soil is damp, but not wet lest the rhizomes rot. All this should de done toward the last of summer or the beginning of fall so that the rhizomes will have time to develop roots before winter sets in.


Try making him nice breakfast hash browns, bacon, and eggs sunny side up. That’s the best way to his heart. He may get off his behind and fix up the front yard. Ask that Master Gardener to lend a hand. That’s what he for.


Copyright © Dana Prom Smith 2011

Dana Prom Smith edits and writes GARDENING ETCETERA for the Arizona Daily Sun and can be emailed at stpauls@npgcable.com.

A NEPALESE STORY

Chheten Tamang

My native language was not written down. We only spoke it. I never read it. There were no schools in my village. I did not learn the alphabet until I was twenty-eight years old. Langtang, the village where I was born and raised is in Nepal at 12,600 feet. It was two days by foot from Kathmandu or one day by bus. There are nine families in the village. Our houses are made of stone.


My father, Dorje, herded yaks. Yaks are valuable because of their milk, fur, and meat. My father sold milk to the government dairy where it was made into cheese. Yak cheese has more taste than cheese from cows.


My mother, Tsiring, spun the yak wool into yarn by hand, spinning it with her fingers. Then my aunt wove the yarn by hand on a loom, and my uncle made our clothes, rugs, and blankets from the cloth woven by my aunt. My mother and father were Tibetan but were born in Nepal. Their grandparents left Tibet during the revolution when China took over Tibet.

Since we are Buddhists, we don’t kill animals for food. We would only eat meat after the animal had died. We did not eat meat often, and when we did, we would share with all the nine families in the village. Sometimes, snow leopards would kill the sheep and yaks.

We also grew vegetables: broccoli, spinach, peas, potatoes, beans, and cabbage. We also ate wild vegetables, like mustard and something that looked like dandelions. Our grains were barley and buckwheat.

Our soil was very rich and dark and our climate rainy.

One time when I was a teenager on a picnic on New Year’s Eve (Chinese calendar) with some friends, I noticed that my flock of sheep was moving around. My job in
the family was to herd the sheep. I looked around to see what was bothering the sheep. I saw a baby yak that was killed by a snow leopard. It was a fresh kill.

We all saw the leopard. It was moving very slowly. It was beautiful with gold and white fur with black spots. My friends and I yelled to scare away the snow leopard and then herded the sheep back home. I told a neighbor, and he went out and got the dead baby yak. We shared the yak meat and chopped up the meat and fried it in mustard oil. Then we used the meat in stews and egg rolls.

When we eat dead yak, we chop up the head after we have burned off the hair, and then we either cook it outside in a bonfire or boil it in a pot inside the house. Then we throw out the bones and brains and eat the meat. We never ate big chunks of meat. We thought they were disgusting. We cook the hooves in with the head.


My father picked out the bones and threw them away. He kept the meat and saved the soup in another bowl in a cool place over night. Late the next morning we ate the soupy gelatin. It had a meaty flavor.

About a three hour walk from our village was a monastery for Buddhist lamas and ten hotels for tourists. With the other villages in the countryside, we celebrated festivals with singing and dancing along with the lamas.


When I was fifteen, I wanted money for food. We did not grow things like corn, oil, and rice. I also wanted to buy clothes and shoes at a town about two days away by foot. It was called Dunche. I would stay at a tea shop made of bamboo and sleep on the floor.

I also became a porter for tourists for a dollar a day. I worked for some city guys down in Kathmandu. I had to buy my own food of rice and flour. I carried sixty pound packs for climbing expeditions into the mountains for climbers at a base camp.

I met my husband, Wayne Gramzinski, in Nepal and came to America. I am learning to write at the Literacy Center.


Chheten Tamang is tutored at The Literacy Center in Flagstaff by Lori Crowe and Dana Prom Smith.