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| The Heirloom Gardener - John Forti (on facebook) Co-Founder of Slow Food Seacoast Curator of Historic Landscape at Strawbery Banke Museum (formerly) Horticulturist at Plimoth Plantation Museum |
I've met some some wonderful people since moving to the Seacoast of New Hampshire. Although, I would like nothing more than to embarrass my friends and neighbors online, I will refrain. However, there is one person who is something of a public figure, so I feel no qualms whatsoever about featuring him here, and spreading a bit of his gospel. No, I have not been evangelized or converted... Well, maybe I have.
John Forti is a person whose life we could all take a page from. His personal web page reads, "He aspires to plant the seeds of history and encourages a more sustainable future to bloom." I think we can safely say he is doing more than aspiring. He's doing it. He's one of those people you just want to follow around with a tape recorder to capture all the little bits of history and wisdom that sort of flutter off of him has he chats his way casually through the gardens and orchards at Strawbery Banke and the historic downtown of Portsmouth and the farms and foodie hot spots of the Seacoast.
By writing this, I do, of course, risk that John will now see me as some sort of a crazy groupie, but since I volunteered to coordinate all the volunteers for the Victorian Children's Garden this season and design and develop to the Discovery Guide for the same, hopefully, he will just role his eyes and smile in his enigmatic, diplomatic way and give me a pass. (Thanks, John!)
Anyway, since moving into TOPH, I have been plotting and planning what to do with the landscape and gardens here. At first glance, there are no "beds" per se. Anything that was a garden is now overtaken with scrub trees, weeds or half-assed hardscape demolition.
Anyway, since moving into TOPH, I have been plotting and planning what to do with the landscape and gardens here. At first glance, there are no "beds" per se. Anything that was a garden is now overtaken with scrub trees, weeds or half-assed hardscape demolition.
This is our first Spring here, so we are seeing a lot of things bloom for the first time. No question at all that the previous owner liked purple (as if we had any doubts here at TOPH.) The front "lawn" is awash in violets and forget-me-nots and some kind of dwarf broad leaf plant with a bearded (like an Iris), two-tone purple flower.
All the "dead" space around the pool is now blanketed in violets. There are purple phlox under the pool fence. There's about an acre of vinca spreading from the wall along the driveway off into the southern woods. There are scraggly lilac bushes peeping out of the brush on the north side of the front yard by the stone wall. And, of course, there are the purple rhododendrons along the back of the house. (See Roadies & Rhodies.) Yep, she liked purple!
The one and only non-purple remainder is an oddly-pruned, flowering (red) quince, which I mistook for a privet last summer. The only reason why I didn't pull it out (because they are my NEMESIS!) is because privet is so blinking impossible to eradicate. But, with a little pruning, I will happily live with this quince and hope there is something nearby that the bees will feel the need to cross-pollinate it with so that we get some edible fruit. Hmmm. Possibilities abound!
So, now that these little specimens are cropping up, how am I going to keep track of them all? And how to memorialize (and teach my children about) all of these horticultural finds? We are going to "take a page from" John Forti and start an Herbarium (or three.)
An Herbarium is a kind of journal for saving pressed plant materials and any information you might have or find about them. They were very popular in the Victorian era when kids knew more about botany than they do now about corporate logos. It doesn't have to be an engraved, leather-bound affair. It can be a 3-ring binder or a school notebook. There is a replica of a Victorian era Herbarium on the Strawbery Banke web site that they use for teaching in the Children's Garden there.
You can help your kids to identify their finds in books (or on Google -- look for .edu sources, please!) Recording when and where things are found can help kids to start to see the difference between plants in Spring and Fall, when things bloom and when seeds emerge, etc. If you travel and don't want to take the whole book with you, a pencil and an old paperback is a good way of saving things until you get home and have some craft and research time. A small kit of tweezers and a magnifying glass will make it all very important and official -- perhaps a reward for filling their first 12 pages? Modern technology also affords the use of things like pictures, but I find that what I take electronically, stays electronic -- I have yet to sit down and scrapbook all of the lovely pictures of my children I've captured on my various phones and cameras over the years, let alone roadside botanical finds... Sigh.
Keep it simple and enjoy some time with your kids, building a vocabulary of botany and natural wonders, perhaps even displacing some of the spoon-fed-by-osmosis corporate branding we are all surrounded by.
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| Here's a shot of the front yard as the purple "surprises" started to bloom. And there are the turkeys retreating down the driveway after feasting in my compost pile. |
All the "dead" space around the pool is now blanketed in violets. There are purple phlox under the pool fence. There's about an acre of vinca spreading from the wall along the driveway off into the southern woods. There are scraggly lilac bushes peeping out of the brush on the north side of the front yard by the stone wall. And, of course, there are the purple rhododendrons along the back of the house. (See Roadies & Rhodies.) Yep, she liked purple!
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| Imagine my surprise when the bush I thought was an ugly old privet turned out to be a flowering quince! |
So, now that these little specimens are cropping up, how am I going to keep track of them all? And how to memorialize (and teach my children about) all of these horticultural finds? We are going to "take a page from" John Forti and start an Herbarium (or three.)
| This is the first page in Emily Dickinson's Herbarium. You can dedicate a page to each specimen and add lots of notes, or collect a bunch and arrange them in a more artistic fashion. Whatever strikes your fancy. There's no wrong way to do it. |
You can help your kids to identify their finds in books (or on Google -- look for .edu sources, please!) Recording when and where things are found can help kids to start to see the difference between plants in Spring and Fall, when things bloom and when seeds emerge, etc. If you travel and don't want to take the whole book with you, a pencil and an old paperback is a good way of saving things until you get home and have some craft and research time. A small kit of tweezers and a magnifying glass will make it all very important and official -- perhaps a reward for filling their first 12 pages? Modern technology also affords the use of things like pictures, but I find that what I take electronically, stays electronic -- I have yet to sit down and scrapbook all of the lovely pictures of my children I've captured on my various phones and cameras over the years, let alone roadside botanical finds... Sigh.
Keep it simple and enjoy some time with your kids, building a vocabulary of botany and natural wonders, perhaps even displacing some of the spoon-fed-by-osmosis corporate branding we are all surrounded by.
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