Build-Your-Own-Grotto

The trickle of water in a sunken garden...
The entrance to this garden is through a gap in the hedge and down a set of stone stairs (out of sight around the right hand corner of the photo) and the water feature is faintly visible through the iron grill.

Welcome to Sheena's garden... How fun was this?! I integrated a tiny basalt waterfall and catch-pool into the bend of the old rock walls. Carved crushed-granite pathways from a cedar-root-bound lawn and laid a meandering dry streambed to nowhere (very Barcelona, very Gaudi ). She calls the resulting grotto mine (i.e., "your garden needs you") and I guess you only have to look at the two before pictures (below) to see why. Good grief. Other than having help with the water feature, I installed the rest with a pick-ax and a bit of frenetic bizness start-up energy during the spring of '02.

Everything was delivered for the hardscaping on this project: pondliner, path edging, landscape fabric, soil and stone--the river-rock and basalt was craned over the hedge on pallets. That was cool.

So even though this was when I had the truck, it could have been bicycle-gardened. In the years since, we have continued to design around the rest of the property.



The challenge in this garden is the enormous Western Red cedar looming just outside the lefthand frame. The tough red scrabbling (and acidic/toxic) roots persistently grow up through the soil, choking out more fragile plant life. I had to raise beds because the existing soil (formerly lawn) was completely root-bound, and choose plants whose rootballs could compete. Over time, some enormous and lovely clumps of salvaged white Japanese iris have gradually succombed, while hostas, hellebores, grasses, ferns, astilbe, perennial geraniums and lady's mantle (Alchemilla mollis) have persevered. The greater variety of plants on the tiered rock walls are far enough away to fare better, but even so, must contend with the roots from the cedar hedge. They're surrounded!

So the pictures above were taken yesterday, and the ones below shortly after installation.

Gardening with a Paintbrush (and a Bicycle)

Yes, much less strenuous! And possibly the only way on God's green earth to make everything bloom at once.

This is my first commission in a long while: an entirely different experience from following the pigments of one's own imagination. So I took a while to develop the right approach, and finally was pleased with the storybook quality that emerged. Funny how flowers are always bigger in memory and imagination...

This is one of the most appreciated paintings I've done: this house and garden was sold/renovated/relocated and held far too many fond memories to go uncommemorated.

Stump Evolution

This is La Paula's garden (a portion). Being new to this blogging bizness, I'm being careful to maintain client privacy. Naked stumps are so embarrassing.








Gotta love before-and-after shots. I'm going to periodically dredge up old before pictures when I remembered to take them, back in the bad ol' days. (This looks like it was taken in the 1970's but it's a digi reproduction from my good old-fashioned photo-album.)

This certainly didn't happen overnight. The whole garden has slowly burgeoned, oozed (in a good way) beyond its originally straight-and-narrow borders over the past...gosh...6? years...with our spring and fall coordinated efforts.

Stumps are wonderful features, especially crazy old-growth remnants like this one. Best planted around with indigenous plants due to the woodsy soil. We've got flowering currant (Ribes sanguineum), snowberry (Symphoricarpus albus), Oregan grape (Mahonia aquifolium), salal (Gaultheria shallon), and a volunteer huckleberry (Vaccinium parvifolium)--the tall one with little red berries. Other good stump-grounders are a deciduous azalea, a tall Miscanthus grass, a non-native mahonia (x media 'Charity'), a Willowleaf Cotoneaster (salicifolius), and a hardy Fuchsia magellanica. The purple-leafed plants a bit further out that don't show up well in this pic are the smokebush (Cotinus purpurea "Royal Purple") and a Japanese maple. The huge old rhododendron was chopped down to about five feet tall and made an epic move last spring to the opposite corner of the garden, and is now in full recovery mode. *(Note: you can click the photo to enlarge and distinguish one green blob from another.)

Love the matching old-wood patina on the fence/shed/stump.

Elimination Theory: Gardening Without a Truck

The logistics of professional gardening on a bicycle...
(Remarkable, really. You just can't see it in this picture.)


----An Interlude----

A recent exchange with a woman who runs a plant nursery in South Burnaby:

"I hear you garden on a bicycle!" she announces gaily.
"Yes!" I answer gaily.
"Well!" she quips merrily, "You must have a very big basket!"
"Well!" I say wryly, "That's the first time someone's said that!"
"I mean," she says with sudden hand motions describing handlebars and rectangles, "A basket on your bike!"
I realize the woman has mistaken wryly for suggestively.
"What else would that mean?" I exclaim, in sudden confusion.
"I don't know!" she stares at me. "What do you mean?"
We stare at each other in ecstatic horror. Did we just say something dirty?

This is why I work with plants. People confuse me.
-----------
So. Gardening Without a Truck.
Like most things in life, necessity breeds invention and I am never more adaptable and innovative than when I have to be. I tend to think this is a good thing, and with the recent manifestations of environmental long-time-comin realities, it gives me hope for humanity. We can land on our feet when we have to.

I, like most people, harboured a mental block about the viability of a bicycle-business. Necessity made me figure out how to do it, and it eventually occurred to me that I preferred it. Meanwhile, people in other places have probably been doing it all along.

It may be important to note that I have always kept one or two days a week for "other interests"--like tutoring, workshopping, painting, contracting with friends' companies, weaving big baskets--as part of my general life mandate. Shake it up. Also, because of the way I've set up my gardening schedule (i.e.; it doesn't have to be this way) the planning side can be time-consuming and so I give myself a break. I don't go to any of my gardens more than every two weeks on a regular schedule--this leaves a lot of room for plugging in projects, once-a-month visits etc. I find weekly schedules too...predictable. To each their own. Currently, I'm bicycle-gardening four days a week. So I am presenting this enterprise as something very adaptable, providing a balance to other forms of employment/studies etc.

On to the feature presentation:

Things You "Need" a Truck For, and the Bicycle-Gardening Equivalent

1. Getting around.

I am a big fan of the Bus/Bike Combo for long-distance clients: cycle in the morning and take advantage of those nifty bus bike-racks on the way home. True, I have been the recipient of the "What kind of bicycle-gardener are you?" phone call when a friend recognizes my somewhat recognizable bike floating by on a bus-rack. C'mon. I'm not a fanatic. And the bus ride is an opportunity for a little book-keeping/a bit of a read perhaps.

I also rationalize that while gardening can be hard work if you are digging/wheelbarrowing etc. all day it is not consistently a Cardio Work-out. Cycling is a heart work-out and if I didn't get a few good hills in a week I'd have to do something like jogging which is just a shame. Whenever I see people working out in gyms/running about I lament that they aren't hooked up to battery chargers or blenders or something. What an untapped source of energy. There's a business idea for someone.

A natural occurrence, the Garden Pod evolves when word-of-mouth encourages friends & neighbours to hire the bicycle-gardener. That is, gardens in close proximity or en route to each other are almost essential for efficiency. This way, I can visit one in the morning and another in the afternoon. I am reluctant to arrange more than two visits per day because travel-time eats into billable hours. This concept also pertains to truck-gardeners, but their undeniable tendency is to do a lot more to-and-fro-ing because it's easy. I tend to be more strident--and efficient--when the motor is me.

Another phenomenon is the Day-Long Garden. Many people are open to full days of work, obviously less frequently, but the monthly bill remains the same. This has happened when it's clear that these clients are off the beaten track, their gardens are big enough to need a gardener all day, and I don't have a Garden Pod to make things work. Then, commuting is simple: get there, go home.

2. Hauling Tools

Even when I had a truck I didn't do lawncare, which already eliminated mowers, trimmers, gas cans--and I've also never used a blower. Yes, there's a few rants in there re: polluting two-stroke engines, how we do not have to eat off our driveways (we're outside, yay nature!) etc. I also solemnly swore that I didn't become a gardener to use, or be in the vicinity of raging belching motors all day, every day. See the July 6th entry-- "What About Tools?"-- for details on what I do take with me.

3. Hauling Plants

The one thing I do miss is driving down the road, loaded with gorgeous nursery stock like a float in a parade. However, I compensate by winding fake flowers around my handlebars.

The number-one easiest thing to involve clients in a project is plant-shopping. Yes folks: plant shopping is fun!

For smaller plantings, I either meet clients at garden centres and generally restrain them to things that will work, or go myself and put items on hold for them to pick up. Alternatively, the garden centres will deliver.

For larger designs, wholesale is the key. When I had a truck, I did explore wholesale nurseries so have since relied on those contacts and their annual catalogues. Many nurseries have since gone on-line and even send out weekly availability lists on request. Word-of-mouth from other landscapers is also useful for finding good plant sources. It's also relatively easy to arrange an off-hours scouting mission with clients/friends. Because plant-shopping is fun.

4. Hauling Soil

It doesn't make economic sense to order one or two yards of anything (mulch/amender/soil etc.) The delivery charge is more, or the same, as the cost of the product. A pick-up truck will carry a maximum of two yards. So I have at least three yards delivered. Gardens around here always always need at least three yards--for new beds and top-ups. It's just a gardening fact.

5. Hauling Away Debris

All garden debris can be left on the curb (in paper yard waste bags, labeled regulation-sized greenwaste bins, or tied up in three-foot bundles) and will be taken away for FREE by the municipality, twelve months of the year. Another gardening fact. So why even consider the alternative: paying someone's hourly rate, plus vehicle costs, plus the dump fee (which, incidently, has also just gone up). Carbon footprint, carbon footprint. Even better, bicycle-gardeners are in favour of onsite greenwaste piles/composts.

And on a final note:

Things That Make You Happy You Are a Bicycle-Gardener
1. Traffic jams
2. The Parking Goddess (fooling yourself there is one)
3. Sitting in dump line-ups (especially during the '07 garbage strike)
4. People who mistake truck-owners for Got Junk? franchisers
5. Hitchhikers wanting to catch a ride to the Merrit Mountain Music Festival
6. Glorious morning bike-rides with coffee-shop instead of gas-station pit-stops
7. The Taylor-Way traffic-light back-up
8. See the latter bits of "The Bloody Beginnings" section

The Bloody Beginnings

*Note: The path less taken can be messy. Messy messy messy. Wear gumboots.

C'mon kids. It wasn't bloody at the very very beginning.

I worked at a garden centre after my first year at university in Victoria. I rode my bicycle actually, and picked up a garden on the side, though I mainly remember sweeping a long driveway. I really loved working at the centre. I remember thinking it was a little odd, how much I liked it. Something about being surrounded by flowers in pots, having water fights and getting paid for it. It must have appealed to the poetical side of an English Lit/History major. Nevertheless, it wasn't a "real" job. I was in academia.

Roughly five years later, I walked into a North Vancouver garden centre, a disillusioned English Lit/History major with a couple years of co-op jobs in bureaucracy/copywriting/art gallery programming, an Altered Perception of Life, and an extended period of bohemia under my tightening belt. Yes, I was broke, but even more the fervent idealist, and talented, I swear, with waaay too much runaround energy to sit behind a desk.

Quelle surprise, I loved it. (Again). This time, I decided to go for it. I signed up for a horticulture program starting the next fall at a local college. Meanwhile, during the garden centre's habitual lay-off period of new employees in the dormancy of August, I flyered a cul-de-sac of elaborate homes, informing them that I would be in the environs every three days to tend gardens. On my bicycle. It got me through to September. Nevertheless, it wasn't a "real" job.

I took the horticulture course and returned to the garden centre for three more years, learning my plant and disease identification, and very much enjoying the humour and creativity in the gardening community. Also travelled one summer to work in a perennial plant nursery in Shropshire, England. Spent most of that time jouncing about to flower shows in a "lorry" and inadvertently learning about the invisible but heavy stratifications in the English gardening world. Yeesh, I thought. I just like flowers. Kew, peeuw. Back to the fresh wilderness of gardening in the New World.

Well, I reasoned nerdily, four years of hitching experience with a green thumb was equivalent to a degree in the School of Life. So, in the spirit of One Whose Time Has Come, I graduated myself from the garden centre, leapt into a truck and started my own business in the spring of 2001.

This is where The Bloody Beginning starts.

I did spend my time at the garden centre trawling for potential mentors in the whole business of gardening. I was daunted, as poetical idealists should be, about launching a business solo.

Ultimately, however, the staunch and practical approach--get a lawn mower, some bread-and-butter maintenance, an arsenal of blowers and pesticides etc.--didn't give me the kick to start. What did was a shambling Pied Piper of a man who appeared frequently, besot with one creative project or another--Seedy Saturdays, children's gardening camps, bizarrely-themed garden designs--and exuding the aura of a medieval storyteller. He wanted my help. High on inspiration, we made our plans, neither one of us noticing that the other was not exactly the business head the other sought.

It wasn't until I was careening free of secure employment that I realized I had to take care of myself in every respect. As it turned out, his idea of our understood partnership was leaving me to garden while he went...elsewhere. Yeesh, I thought, I might as well be on my own. Since I had my own truck, and work offers were coming my way, I tactfully peeled away. It wasn't until I had "tactfully peeled away" that I realized I was in business solo. Uh oh.

The new stresses that come with sudden entrepreneurship seemed to have no effect on my stubborn creative and environmental streak. I shall not mow, I said. I refused the bread-and-butter of lawncare and regular maintenance. I shall do projects, I said, flourishing my shovel like an artist's paintbrush, or perhaps a fountain pen. Renovations, designs and installations are the thing! I relied on my many contacts through horticulture school and the garden centre for referrals, and launched myself, full-frenzy. I discovered new levels of stress as I sought the next project even as I laboured with the challenges of the current one. Oh, the learning curve of cost and time estimates, logistics, bookkeeping, and product sourcing when you are also the #1 labourer, day after day! I'd never worked as hard in my life. But I still liked flowers.

Then the August doldrums hit--the baking dormancy when no one dares to lift a root from the soil. I panicked, and with truck/loan/insurance/rent payments looming, I finally did a reasonable thing. I sought staunch and practical Mentor #2--in his office at the far end of a cavernous shop, lined with every hand and power tool known to the garden industry. It was a walk of contrition, Dorothy to the Wizard of Oz, needing a little bit of everything. Just please, please, I begged, don't make me mow.

Well, he never did. And for all the eccentricities that seem to come with folks in the gardening industry, he was also an excellent teacher and avid plantsman who instilled high standards in his crew. Seven years later, that original crew--now all owner-operators of garden businesses--remain my gardening comrades in one way or another.

I worked part-time with The Crew, and kept cultivating my own clients--I even managed to help the Pied Piper with the children's gardening camps the next summer. He was (is) truly gifted with children. It was a wonder-full experience.

But back to the bloody beginnings.

Trouble was brewing. My truck, despite its clean BCAA check, was chronically choking up body parts. It had a digital link to my bank account and seemed to sabotage me on cue. In one infamous incident, the front-wheel ball-joint sheared just after leaving the highway, and the whole thing keeled over like a dead horse. Very rare, mechanics assured me. In another, the (parked) truck was sideswiped by a bandit during a police-chase in a pastoral rural setting. Sorry 'bout that, little lady, the constable said. Next time, I said, corner your bandit somewhere else.

I was happy to be alive, and I still liked flowers, but the world of academia was beginning to look better from this angle. I broke up with the boyfriend who had helped me find the truck in the first place. (He also taught me bookkeeping so I forgive him everything.) Our final break-up coincided with the slow disintegration of the truck's starter. I had to go back and borrow a hammer so I could crawl under the engine and give it a whack to get it going. Well, he said, good luck with that. I peeled away.

I signed up at the local college to add the credits I needed to my degree to qualify for teacher training. A little back-up plan. One week before school started, there was a cloud of smoke (*the oil was fine*) that destroyed the starter I had just replaced. Other things vaporized as well. Mechanics could not explain it. It's supposed to be a good truck. They scratched their heads. The bill would have been in the thousands.

I traded my truck to my scavenger/handyman landlord for a semester's free rent. I was, funny that, still paying off the loan.

Okay, everyone can take a break for a stretch and put the kettle on, etc.

...


Of course, there was a "glitch" in my plans. I had intended to work my way through school and now my modus operandi was gone. I relayed this news to my clients, and they said--Oh for crying out loud. Just get here: take the bus, ride your bike, whatever. You can use our tools. Just get here.

So there you have it, future bicycle-gardeners of the world: Make them think it was their idea. Stage an elaborate start-up, and an even more spectacular break-down. Be earnest.

But really. Bicycle-gardening got me through school without taking a loan. By May I was ready to start full-time gardening again after a winter of "improvising". Clients asked if I was getting a truck soon. Um...no. I was still working part-time with The Crew, still paying off my Dead Truck loan (ten grand in two years is not bad, given the circumstances), germinating ideas to work with kids and one day apply for teacher training...and technically, I was doing the work my clients needed a la bicyclette.

It was the summer of 2003, and though I felt the burdens of perception, there were glimmerings of the Theory of Elimination: take away Stuff We Think We Need in order to discover we don't need it at all. It was the beginning of creative living, outside the box.

What About Tools?

"What about TOOLS?"...people exclaim, when I explain I'm a bicycle-gardener.







In short, my gardens are residential and my clients land somewhere in the spectrum of hobby-gardeners/do-it-yourselfers/we-need-helpers. So...they have an active interest in their gardens and they have...tools. Of course they do. They have shovels and rakes and a wheelbarrow, possibly even a ladder, pole-pruner, garden fork etc. Or they are so bold as to borrow one from a neighbour when I come. They take care of their lawns themselves or hire a lawn-care company. They have a broom, or secretly bring out the leaf blower when I leave. So I take my good-quality pruning equipment and a collection of tricks that seem to cover most surprises that come up.

Here's a couple pictures of what I take with me: before packing, and tucked into a drop-in side pannier (Jando). Here's the Mary Poppins list:

Bicycle-Gardening Essentials

Felco secateurs (there is nothing but Felco)
Good quality garden shears (Bahco Pradines)
"" folding handsaw (Silky)
Trowel (frequently lost, replaced, and found again)
Hand cultivator
Hand rake (voted best new little tool ever, by me)
Paper yard waste bags (when no greenwaste onsite)
Jute twine/velcro fastener for plant ties and sisal twine for bundling hardprunings
Scissors
Whisk-broom
Garden gloves
Bike lock and tire pump (double-duty as wheel-barrow pump)
Helly Hanson rubber rain jacket in camouflage green
Lightweight waterproof bike/gardening pants (MEC)
Gumboots (for cycling and gardening on rainy rainy days)
OR velcro-on boot covers (MEC) on misty days
Gardening hat
Back-pack for lunch and..
Admin kit: daytimer/schedule, celphone, digi camera, invoice book

Note the essential coffee cup fits into a standard water-bottle holder attached to bike frame and the beat-up gardening boots (ok, I'm advertising, but... **Blundstones forever**--what else can you garden and cycle in?) fit on feet.

So all this, or variations on the theme, hooks onto the back rack of my bicycle and also remains portable when I cheat and take the bus (bike on bus bike-rack and tool-pannier hooked over my shoulder with a handy adidas-bag clip-on shoulder strap). People have asked if the one-sided super-loaded pannier throws me off-balance and I say no. I guess it's not that heavy.

Also note that I do not use a bike trailer for a couple of reasons:
1. There are a lot of hills around here, and I don't want to haul a lot of weight
2. I like to hop on and off of buses.
3. I repeat: people have tools, or they are willing to get them.

Well hello there..

So who would have thought. Just returned from another day of this bicycle-gardening I speak of. Granted, it is July: one of the four months of the year that people are guaranteed to marvel at the occupation of gardening in general as an enviable one. Mayjunejulyaugust. This morning was balmy, and as I coasted down Mountain Highway, coffee cup steaming in the drink holder, I honestly couldn't think of what I'd rather be doing. The world is green, heady with cross-drafts of blooming things, and I feel free.

Okay, so it proceeded to psst rain the rest of the day. HOWever. I was busy pruning and tending a garden we partially redesigned last fall, so was fun to see how the new plants are filling in. Also prepping the place for a late August wedding, so planned a few more visits before then, to make sure everything will be camera-ready. And the lady of the house delivered fresh coffee, muffins, and cherries picked from the top branches of trees in Creston (apparently--it's a late crop this year & slim pickins) to keep me inspired. Just as I was finishing up the sun came out, so I shed my dual-purpose bike/gardening rain pants and boot covers, rolled up Helly, and rolled off surprisingly clean.

So la, a day of bicycle-gardening. It is normal for me now, but certainly took a while to work out the gear, the logistics, the philosophy. Even then, it is good to start with an understanding of the seasonal boot camp that gardening-for-a-living can be. It is more of an adjustment for anyone whose previous life/occupation was little affected by the seasons and the weather. I have personally developed a despisal for radio announcers who deliver those swivel-chair weather reports, like "oo, check out the torrential downpour folks, what a drag" as if it affects them at ALL in their warm dry little studios. I have nevertheless also developed an addiction for being outside, in tune, cycling through the cycle of the seasons. And I LOVE always always having an excuse to be there, immersed in plants, feeling completely engaged and productive. It's elemental: we just "wish we were outside." Who is "we"? Gardeners? Oo, gotta work. Darn.