Snow

We've had some awfully pretty snow lately. It animates the air, and always makes me happy.

Ailanthus

This little tenement garden in Chelsea is a jewel.

Those are ailanthus trees pushing up through the pavement. It’s hard to tell if they were growing in soil and someone cemented them in or if they got started in little cracks. In either case the trees are at war with the pavement. Slow, enormous pressure has buckled the earth.

And then someone whitewashed the trunks: a brilliant, touching gesture that includes the "weed" trees among the things that are seen, appreciated and cared for. And the life of the stoop goes on with garbage cans and hanging out, a place to sit, a window to lean out, a flag. Come summer there will impatiens.

Nothing here is imposed: not the plants, not the ideas, not the technique. An inspired soul reacted to what happened on 25th Street. This is what is meant by vernacular. There is inspiration for highfalutin artistic departures here, but it’s hard to imagine they would be more gratifying than the original.

Espalier

I was struck by the beauty of this espaliered pear at the Cloisters.

And I thought someone could really do something with these on rooftops and terraces, where there are ugly bulkheads and mechanical installations to hide. Most fruit trees do decently in containers provided they have an irrigation system; there is plenty of sun and moving air to keep down the leaf diseases; and since roof gardens are isolated from other plants, pests are less of a problem. So it's conceivable one could grow unblemished fruit without having to spray.

Of course, the trees would need to be knowledgeably pruned lest they lose their form, but one could learn. And the more difficult initial training could be handled by the esteemed Henry Leuthardt of Long Island.

http://www.henryleuthardtnurseries.com/

I notice they list apricots, which I've never seemed espaliered.

Apartment orchid

When I had 4 south facing windows and a fire escape I went nuts for orchids: I had around 50 plants. Then I had to move and found a place with a patio garden but fewer windows. My orchid frenzy had mostly run its course, so I gave most the collection away. Now I grow only a few, including this one: Oncidium x Twinkle 'White Caps'. (Onc. cheirophorum x Onc. ornithorhynchum) It blooms at Christmas with a froth of white flowers that smell of vanilla and spice when the sun shines on them.

The orchids that made the cut were varieties with a definite seasonal cycle. They go outside in May and make their growth, come in around Halloween, bloom in the dead of winter, then sit dormant till it's time to go out again. They are all small, nice looking (or at least interesting looking), tough plants. Laelia rubescens is on the verge of blooming, and I'll post her when she does.

I've also grown the Paphs and Phals that are often recommended for apartments. I've rebloomed them, swabbed rubbing alcohol on their scale infestations, stood by their gradual decline, and eventually said to hell with it.

Orchids are propogated in greenhouses, and it takes a couple of years to acclimate them to apartment living. Once they've settled in, they're easy.

Moss 2

Moss also grows on the surface of potting soil that has been undisturbed for a few years. I notice it especially on potted sedums that never get fertilized. The sedum takes over in the summer, then it dies back exposing the moss during it's active winter season.

One winter Gertrude Jekyll wrote that the north side of her tree trunks were a hazy gray green and that the green of ivy and yew had receded to near black. Only the moss, she noticed, was a "positive" green.

As a tribute to Miss Jekyll I've been cultivating some moss / sedum containers. Cultivate is the wrong word because enlightened neglect is the formula. Sun in summer, no fertilizer, no supplemental water, a couple years' patience.

Moss 1

You either have moss or you don't. It's hard to "grow" it, though people try. And other people who have it are often trying to get rid of it and grow lawns instead.

I've attached a photo of one of the great sights of Ainslie Street. It is an indoor-outdoor rug, sitting over a basement hatch on the north side of a house, that has been colonized by a luxurious moss.

Moss requires seasonal moisture and light. It cannot tolerate competition from other plants, foot traffic, disturbance at the roots or being covered with leaves in the winter. But virtually nothing in the way of soil nutrients is required, and it can take summer drought.

Trouble

Winter rain can kill container plants. When the potting soil is frozen solid the planter's drainage hole is frozen closed, so rain saturates the soil and collects in a puddle on top. Then the puddle freezes, and the plant's crown is frozen in a block of ice. Hardy plants can take dry cold, but this is something else.

Try to tip the puddle out of the pot.

Mt Ievers Court

While we're on dream houses there's Mount Ievers in Ireland. It was built in the 1730's by an architect named John Rothery of whom I know next to nothing.

Foursquare, intense and abstract, this house has fixed itself in my mind like an unforgettable dream. It looks exactly like my idea of a house, but it is as inscrutable as a mask.

In Sebald's The Rings of Saturn the narrator lodges for a few days with a family of impoverished gentry, the Ashburys, Three impractical old Irish spinsters occupy their house like refugees; they eat standing up, dry seed in paper bags hanging from clotheslines strung up around the library and work minute and intricate embroideries. I thought of Mt Ievers when I read about the Ashburys, but it took a few years for me to remember its name.

Wooton Lodge

I just had to post a photo of a favorite building, Wooton Lodge in England. Built around 1600 and probably designed by Robert Smythson though no documentary evidence exists.

It was very handsomely modified around 1740. The chimneys were rebuilt at that time, the stair to the front door added and the forecourt with it's eliptical drive and corner pavilions were laid out. Very sympathetic enhancements.

I love how this building rises with such poise on a promontory that projects out into a little valley.

Key West

These yuccas against a wood fence really do it for me.

I love the stiffness of the leaves. It is characteristic of yuccas from the tropics and deserts. Our native yucca flops a bit more than I like.