what do you get when you cross kudzu with a banana tree

The empress or princess tree is often seen as one of those grim signs of horticultural blight because it grows in and around parking lots all over the urban South. It actually has a pretty aristocratic pedigree since it was named for Anna Paulowna, Princess of the Netherlands (1795-1865). According to Southern Living's Steve Bender who writes of it in the book Passalong Plants, it likely spread south after an introduction to a Hudson Valley nursery just after the Civil War. Paulowina Tomentosa is native to Japan. And, besides the obvious tropical effect of the huge leaves, the empress tree gets looks in the spring with large panicles of purplish-blue flowers. BUT, is it an invasive weed tree?  yeah, kinda....is it a prized ornamental and fast growing shade tree? um, yes.

This specimen sits just outside the side entrance to Durham's newly opened Fullsteam Brewery. It looks like it was cut back last winter, which was a good idea because the new vigorous growth looks pretty cool. Treating it like a perennial is smart. You get the large-leaf effect for the summer but without the seeds. This is because only mature trees seem to get enough gumption to actually produce blossoms. And no seeds means no renegade seedlings.

made for scratch

 Scratch now has an open storefront on 111 Orange Street in downtown Durham. I've already been and the food lives up to the hype...no surprise there!
This past spring I had the enjoyable task of designing and installing several planters outside the shop. The owner, Phoebe Lawless, is a friend and down-the-street neighbor whose home garden is teeming with dozens of gorgeous plants. I was lucky to have a lot of choices from her yard that were both easy to divide and well suited for the site. For my early-to-full summer scheme, I used a mix of groundcovers for sun (sedum, ajuga reptans, and wire vine) and shade (creeping jenny and a velvety gourd-leaf lookalike from Asia Minor called lady's mantle). Yes, there are some things you could flavor a dish with (rosemary, cardoon, scuppernong) but right now the planters are not designed to grow food. I am hoping the ornamental grasses (chiefly, sea oats and feather grass) keep their promise as low-maintenance all stars.....we'll see. Like all plans, the best ones need to be revised once in a while. We have already spied a stray sunflower seed that has hitchhiked its way into one planter!  We may just decide to see what it does.

P.S. When visiting the shop, take notice of the beautiful woodwork that Phoebe's partner, Chuck Samuels, completed. The counter and display case as well as the bluish table tops are really a testament to his skills.


Pictured below from top to bottom L to R: 
*Northern sea oats
*Alchemilla mollis aka "lady's mantle" planted around a pre-existing azalea group.
*Sedums, blue fescue, and a small cardoon seedling. The smooth-ish  rusty brown stones came from Phoebe and Chuck's backyard in Rockwood. They look identical to many  of the rocks found  throughout the Third-Fork-Creekbed that flows through our neighborhood's Rockwood Park. 

scratch bakery opening shop downtown

I am excited for my friend and neighbor Phoebe Lawless. Her Scratch Seasonal Artisan Baking table has had long lines at the Durham Farmer's Market for awhile now; in fact the cult following of her pies and other baked goods is now way too large to be called a cult. And those fans will have more to like since today's Durham News announced the gossip that I've known for a few months. Scratch is opening up shop at 111 Orange Street in downtown Durham. I am excited to be designing and installing some of the container plantings outside this soon-to-be space. I will keep up with that progress on this blog as we move into spring.

good choices at golden belt

I ran into Katherine Gill last week. She is a landscape architect who lives in southwest central Durham, not far from my house. I profiled her and her wonderful garden for the Durham Skywriter back in May. Besides starting a community supported agriculture project (literally in her own backyard) she was also commissioned to design and implement parts of a new landscape around the renovated Golden Belt factory in east Durham. There, she has filled containers, beds, and pathways with smart plant choices. Especially noteworthy are the perennials, shrubs, and trees that can stand the heat and the humidity of our summers.

(pictured above: Stones of this shape and size have always been necessary to control erosion and vegetation along rail lines. Here, their use in a parking lot median is a nice touch given the industrial history of Golden Belt and the track that still runs nearby. Native switchgrass and a low growing evergreen juniper will soften this feature throughout the year --even after winter turns the grass an appealing brownish-blond .)

food and fellowship in the St.Phillip's community garden

This community garden sits beside the parking lot of Durham's St.Phillip's Episcopal Church at the corner of East Main and North Dillard Streets. The gates are always open. One of the goals of this well designed garden was to invite nearby residents to come in, ask questions, pick vegetables, and enjoy the pleasant green space. With that measure, the experiment was a success. The garden is beautiful even on a cloudy and foggy morning. Look for a short piece about this garden in next month's Skywriter.

Summer Fling

A little over two years ago, local artist Sheri Wood launched a public garden from the roof of an empty two story-building in downtown Durham. Her seed-filled “Pinata Anchor of Hope” broke open in a vacant lot near a pad of prepared soil. Children and volunteers pressed the carefully blended mix of summer annuals and drought-hardy perennials in place. Several weeks later I noticed the piñata’s insides had morphed into a rowdy collection of green stalks with a few spare cosmos flowers. Other seedlings would identify themselves later.

Working downtown at the time, I loved seeing the Anchor of Hope growing in a mostly empty and central location. It was a temporary exhibition, but supposedly so was the state of downtown- a lot of street construction and few pedestrians. Unlike the streetscape improvements, the Anchor of Hope project looked better as the summer wore on. I coveted the carefree blooms for my home garden and tried to identify the jumble of plants in the circular plot. I made a list on the back of an envelope with plans to recreate a version myself one day.

Sometime in September, Sherri and a helper put the flowers to bed. The conglomerate was still flowering, but the summer was over. As I stopped to chat, she gave me a few packs of seeds from the original Anchor of Hope mix as well as a division of aster. The aster had almost a dozen powder-purple daisies clinging to the sticky bundle of stems. I took these back to my windowless office on the first floor of City Hall and thus began to day-dream about a humble start for my own yard. That weekend, I put the aster in the ground and saved the seeds for the next spring. I was giddy. My list was now inside of an envelope.

For the past two springs and summers, my family and many a bumblebee have enjoyed a decent growth of upright or “purple top” verbena courtesy of the Anchor of Hope. Their ability to reseed keeps them around. The gift of aster has given birth to its own clumps that have been moved around a couple of times already. They should start their display again in few days or weeks.

I am glad I got to witness the Anchor of Hope’s growing season. It lives on in my yard and probably several other lots in town whose owners were lucky enough to pass near the intersection of Main and Corcoran streets on the day it had to go away. The streets and sidewalks in downtown are much improved. New restaurants have come and more are due. Today, a promised revitalization for Durham’s core is easier to imagine. This vision includes a planned office tower for the site where the Anchor of Hope once held a small place. Perhaps a landscape architect can make room for some xeriscaping or low-maintenance plantings when those plans are fine-tuned. I’ve got some stuff that would look great there.

I wish I could have gotten a hold of Sherri before writing this post. I wanted to ask her some more questions and see if she would be offended by my attention on this blog. I hope she is not, and am glad that she was so generous with her project.