Shed Happens

As a gardener I don’t have to choose my battles, they just appear before my eyes.  The latest offense was the mouse which chewed an entry hole into my shed.  While mice have always gotten inside, they’ve previously politely slid beneath the door, so this creature’s wanton destruction was the rub.  On Saturday I replaced the threshold, armored the door with metal, and re-painted the area.  Lastly, I placed a trap in front of the door.  Said mouse couldn’t resist checking out the upgrades.  The little fellow, now squashed, was so fat he must have been trying to grow into a junior rat. 

I built my shed with own hands, to a design from daydreams.  With an overstuffed garage, a garden shed seemed necessary, but I wanted one worthy of a glossy garden magazine, not a pre-fab job from the DIY shop.  I had always admired small accessory buildings, and was beguiled by those seen at rustic Eastfield Village in Nassau and especially grand Boscobel in Garrison.  If I couldn’t have the main house there, perhaps the outhouse would do, a Greek-revival mini-masterpiece. 

The spark to start came in the form of two ancient classical columns, found at a local flea market.  Perhaps once on a stately Hudson River home, they would create a formal porch for my shed with Greek-revival style.  I found full-dimension timber for the frame at a local sawmill.  Much sturdier than the matchsticks sold at chain lumberyards, it was so green that sap oozed forth when it was nailed or screwed.  Locally-produced novelty siding which slide together, tongue-and-groove style, further strengthened the frame.  Old doors and windows found as roadside freebies provided an air of age.  With slowly increasing amazement, I made a building rise from a pile of pieces.  I spent most of the summer of 2002 working on my masterpiece, which evolved into more of a tiny house than a place to dump the tomato cages and deer netting.

Life can change suddenly, even for a shed.  Straight-line winds toppled our mighty white pine one July day in 2008, and it landed in the worst possible place.  Pine limbs violently punctured the roof.  While the shed stayed intact, it was pushed a foot off its foundations to the east, and stood leaning to the left like a drunken cardboard box.  Just cleaning up the tree debris took days, and for a while it seemed the little building was beyond repair.  Perhaps I should pull it down and haul it to the Colonie dump.

I didn’t have the heart for demolition, and by tugging carefully with my truck and a come-along winch, the frame gradually straightened – mostly.  Using a car jack, I leveled the floor – mostly.  After adding twelve cross braces, the shed was sturdier, but a little less straight, than ever.  I splurged and hired a roofer who installed a new red metal roof, scrounged another old door, then painted it all.  With people and sheds, I’ve decided being slightly crooked adds character.    

Tender Plant, Tough Man

Do my coleus, enjoying an 80 degree October day, know they are actually sitting on death row?  The weather-people say cooler temperatures are imminent, and even if we have another non-winter here, it will soon be too cold for coleus.  A true tropical, the year-round residency of a tender coleus plant is confined to USDA Hardiness Zone 11, which is some pretty scarce real estate.  I could take some cuttings and try to keep them alive on a windowsill.  I am so enamored of their lovely leaves, perhaps I will.

 
With foliage in all of nature’s colors except true blue, and leaf shapes ranging from thin and lacey to flapping elephant-ears, coleus has a lot to offer the gardener who wants more than flowers.  I became a coleus-phile in the fourth grade.  Our teacher, Miss Perna, had a classroom full of them, and my buddy Allen and I volunteered for the tending.  This altruism wasn’t inspired by a love of plants, but rather our schoolboy crushes on our mentor.  When classes wound down in June, Miss Perna announced she was giving up teaching, getting married and moving to Cincinnati.  How could she?  Allen and I got to split up the coleus collection as a consolation prize.      
 
With a kaleidoscope of colors to choose from, every coleus can be your favorite.  This summer, I have a giant specimen with deepest purple leaves edged in green growing in my purple tire planter.  A large affair with pink, green and white leaves hides the propane tank

nicely.  Perhaps the most exotic one sports finely-cut foliage of gold and maroon.  Just a few years ago, plants in these loud regions of the color spectrum were considered crass and denigrated by garden experts, who decreed that only pink, blue, white and silver were to be used by the well-informed.  As a result, the popularity of coleus in the 80’s tanked.  Luckily, those conservative opinions have fallen away, and riotous, anything-goes color is now appreciated.  The cry of the coleus today is “let the good times grow!”
 
The happy coleus came about in part due to a rather difficult man.  Carl Ludwig Blume, a horticulturist of German extraction, was sent to Java from the Netherlands in 1819.  In addition to studying the blooms, Blume also was the “inspector of vaccinations” and was tasked with protecting folks from cholera, typhoid, and the like.  While plant collecting, he came across coleus, which was transported back to Europe and eventually became a hit in the gaudy gardens of the Victorians.  By some accounts at least, Blume was autocratic, dominant, and generally antagonistic to his peers and potential friends.  At least one historian today believes that Blume might have just been seeking to keep his employer, the Leiden Herbarium, number one in the uber-competitive world of nineteenth century botany.  In any case, Blume would be peeved if he found out that coleus, once named in his honor as Coleus Blumei, is nowadays called by the charmless binomial Plectranthus scutellaroides.    

A Pear of Problems

A bike ride from the Port of Albany to Voorheesville on the recently-completed Hudson/Helderberg Bike Trail is a true treat.  While zipping by waterfalls, behind strip malls and over traffic-choked roadways on a smooth ribbon through the countryside, I say a sincere thank you to all those who made this joy ride possible.  I have only one gripe.  At the western end, in front of a lovely pavilion, are planted two Callery pears.  Unfortunately, someone doesn’t know that, for some time now, Callery pear has been a plant non grata, the poster child of a bad botanical actor, and simply not a good choice for a newly designed landscape.   

It didn’t start out this way.  According to the Washington Post, Callery pear (Pyrus Calleryana) was imported from China more than a century ago as a possible solution to the problem of fireblight disease in fruit-producing pear trees.  As part of that research, thousands of Callery pear seedlings were growing at the U.S. Plant Introduction Station in Glenn Dale, Maryland in the early 1950’s.  That’s when horticulturist John Creech found one that showed some outstanding ornamental characteristics.  He admired its beautiful early spring blossoms, disease and insect resistance, and tremendous vigor even in tough site conditions.  It also lacked the thorns which other Callery pears brandished.  Naming it ‘Bradford’ for F.C. Bradford, a former director of the Station, John planted 180 specimens in University Park, a Washington, D.C. suburb.  Happy with the results, by 1960 scion wood was offered to nursery propagators to graft onto pear rootstocks, which could then be sold to the public.  This would allow identical ‘Bradford’ Callery pear trees to be planted across the nation. 

A new star of garden centers was born.  Landscapers liked ‘Bradford’ for its ease of planting.  Landscape architects and highway departments were drawn to its lollypop shape.  Everyone enjoyed the flowers.  But trouble was brewing.  It was soon discovered that ‘Bradford’ had a poor branching structure, and sometimes split during storms.  Many trees suffered irreparable damage and required removal.  In response, new varieties of Callery pear were developed with better shape and structure.  Then folks noticed that Callery pears seemed to be producing more fruits.  The original planting of isolated ‘Bradfords’ back at University Park had seemed almost sterile.  But as time went on, and more varieties of pears inhabited more of the country and cross pollinated, they quietly fruited.  Where they are fruits, there are birds, who aided in the spread of new Callery pears hither and yon, beyond the built landscape.  A new invasive species was born.

By the late 90’s, the invasive characteristics of Callery pear were becoming known.  Soon, dozens of states listed Callery pear on their invasive lists; the number today is 29 states or better.  Localities nationwide are now spending tax dollars on eliminating invasive pears, but in New York, we keep planting them.  Unfortunately, State government left Callery pear off the invasive species list created in 2014.  Obviously, we have a disconnect between people and the potential of the pear.