Putting a Banana to Bed (for the winter)

The incredulity has worn off by now--that we have bananas in North Vancouver I mean. I remember when the One Guy with banana trees was legendary, and people would go on mystical quests to find his garden.

Of course, no one ever actually gets fruit, but the plant itself is a wonder for us northerly folk. Now that I have extensive meditative experience in tropical banana groves, I'd say the plants here are overall more attractive; the climate is neither dusty nor blast-furnace-like, so banana leaves tend to unfurl in their other-worldly way, and remain fresh and untattered. Tropical banana groves can look a bit ship-wrecked.

Here's Jim n' Wren's banana grove, on the cusp of December. Case in point. And contrary to the Overwintering Banana Advisory, I'm afraid I don't treat it with kid gloves at this time of year...

I call these the Banana Manglers.

(*Take note of the warm-hands tactics: long fluorescent rubber workgloves with--also fluorescent--warm fuzzy cotton liners, purchased at Mark's Work Wearhouse. Reduces your digital dexterity, but at this time of year, "mangling" is an acceptable activity.)

I wanted to show a cross-section of a banana stem because it is essentially a pillar of water: very easy to slip a saw through but very heavy to carry!

(It doesn't taste like banana. Not that I tried it. It doesn't smell like banana.)

We started this rather reductionist approach one year when the grove was getting ridiculously big, and we were actually trying to "discourage" it. Prior to that, I would undertake the installation of a complex insulation system involving straw and black plastic and wads of string around standing stalks so that a large vaguely humanoid garbage-like structure would appear to be lurching through the bare winter garden. Unnecessary. A banana grove will spring back full-size from the ground.

(No monkey habitat left. Save the monkeys.)

Even if the big stumps freeze and turn into a gloopy mess, the roots will send up a whole new crop of shoots (like the few still standing) and the grove will resurrect itself--even after last winter's endless snow and freezing temperatures (I don't think it went below -15C). Of course, the chopped banana leaves are saved for a teepee mulch, see below.


So sweet dreams Musa Basjoo.

O--another haiku opportunity:

Daay-Oh. Day oh-oh.

Winter come and me wanna

Go to Hawaii.

Haiku 4 u

A dry red leaf placed
On rain-slicked bed of black grass.
Instead of raking.


Japanese maple leaf on Black Mondo Grass/Ophiopogon planiscapus 'Nigrescens'
(Another profound moment brought to u by Bicycle-Gardening Chronicles.)

Last Leg to Christmas Rose 2009...

Yea, tho the sun sets on the season's roses, I do yet persevere.

Not sure where my up-til-now secret obsession came from, but, where the prospects look promising, I deign from dead-heading if I think the plant will eke out a bud or bloom for Christmas. I'm sure it's symbolic, perhaps a medieval hangover. (Also been known to bellow "More Meade!" round this time of year. Awkward, in Starbucks.)

Anyways, we all know that evergreen "Christmas" trees/garlands/decorations etc. are all pagan rituals that The Church appropriated. I'm not saying I'm pagan--I'm just saying these are the things that you learn/investigate if you do a humanities degree. And now, as the tradesperson I am destined (by virtue of my humanities degree) to be, I understand the many dimensions of gardening.

More Meade!

The point being: decorating one's home with signs of life and light in the dead of winter simply sustains the spirit. (On the other hand, plastic Christmas trees in tropical countries are sheer corporate triumph.)

So! Last Leg to Christmas Rose 2009! I will provide photo evidence of the finalists.

Magnifico Mosaica

It's not everyday that one sees a mosaic-in-action. Was riding home a week or so ago just as an unusual crew was congregated on a corner next to Argyle high-school, in the act of creating an aggregate-style mosaic. The head artist was directing the speedy placement of swirls of coloured glass and pre-made step-stones, like the flower above. The still-wet concrete slurries over the surface, securing various mosaic-bits as it dries, then is rinsed to reveal the pattern. Fabulous.
As I went to and fro that evening, I kept witnessing the ongoing process, and took the card of one of the women participating. She also does mosaic work around town--except in the more Italian style, using broken tile bits.

In my ideal world, every concrete surface is mosa-icked. And everybody rides bikes. And gardens. And paraglides.

Go take a look for yourself. Corner of Fromme and Frederick.

Diverting Run-Off!!

This is super-exciting for people (Roswitha...) trying to figure out how to divert water on sloping driveways; i.e., away from house foundations, toward drain.

Instead of unsightly sandbags (insert info-mercial panning & zoom-ins here) you too can have neat little trowelled concrete mini-berms installed in critical locations. (Here, around metal electronic-gate plates on interlocking driveway.)

Get your mini-berms now. Before the el nino winter of floods and tempests and no snow for the Olympics.

The Olympics. Diverting public funds away from the foundations of a civil society and down a corporate drain in a city near you.*

*Note: the opinions unrelated to gardening represented in this blog will not affect the quality of garden work done and are of no concern to people who pay me.

Works in Progress...

Here's a few "blank canvasses" that have been underway this fall. Unfortunately, I don't have the before-the-before shots for all of them: just the neat n'tidy bare soil gradually getting planted up. This belies the hours and hours of work required to create that nice neat n'tidy and well-defined blank canvas. It's such a feeling of accomplishment that, where other people see "mud" (one obviously unconscious passer-by actually made that comment!!) I prefer to admire the clean slate for a while.

Here's Sandra and Don's front rock wall--after the removal of 30-year-old junipers (a machine clawed them out and left plenty rubble for us to fine tune.) Just finished planting it up with pinky-red azaleas, white heather, rockgarden dianthus from the neighbour, purple heucheras, purple-black euphorbias, blue-green Podocarpus (that's a spready evergreen), purple-leafed berberis...and saving a space for the lovely feature of the show: a Hakuro-Nishiki willow--the one with white and pink variegation. In spring (phase two), we'll deal with the bottom boulevard. You'll just have to visualize, because the teeny new plants hardly showed up in the "after"photo so I deleted it. OMMMM.

And next we have Susan and George's White Cliff of Eagle Island garden--this was another missed before-before shot because the cliff was covered in ferns and salal until a burly cliff-clearing crew got at it. Then suddenly rock walls appeared and barges of crushed granite and soil and bark mulch arrived, and we (Mike and I) appeared on the scene in time to truly appreciate the lovely blank slate. And fill it up with aucubas-and-maples-and-skimmias-and-Hako-grasses- and-climbing-hydrangea-and-hardy-fuchsias-and-hostas and and and. Pending on plant availability in spring. So I'll update the photos when I can get a nice shot. (I usually do "after" shots about 2 years later, so this entry is mainly for the "blank slate appreciation day." Or minute.)

Again, visualize with me: OMMM.

And here we have a portion of Nick and Terry's back garden (was a "yard"--now a "garden"). This was fun, because I love big old stumps and there's a big old stump. Nick was building decks and arbours (and has yet to install a waterfall), one step ahead of my barrows of soil and loads of plants. So I don't expect you to truly appreciate the last (unfinished) shot of the planting; suffice to say, it'll be great. Trust me. OMMM. We will resume in spring.

Oh, there were more projects but sometimes it just doesn't translate into photos well--I think I need some 3-D technology so I can walk through a space with accompanying birdsong (hello Cheryl: youtube). O ya--but give me the winter to come to terms with the next great leap in technology. I've only just discovered DVDs this year. Not kidding. 'Scuse me, gotta watch a movie...