December 09, 1993 - Binocular PerspectiveHoe, Hoe, Hoe
Holiday Harvest of Garden Books
By Andrew Messinger
For most of us, the gardening season
is just about over and now begins the
time when we get to sit down and catch
up on our garden reading. And just in
the Saint Nick of time, a number of
publishers have come out with some
superb gardening books that you may
want to get for yourself and of course,
give as gifts. So we're off with a hoe,
hoe, hoe.
I have always been cautious about
recommending books written by Brit-
ish authors because in too many cases
their gardening experiences, practices
and all too often, plant selections, are
not appropriate to our colder climate.
This year, however, there are three
excellent exceptions to my rule. The
following three reviews have been a
delight to write because of my partial-
ity, which has led me to believe that the
English write the best gardening books.
In his forward to Pruning, A Practi-
cal Guide by Peter McHoy ( Abbevile,
1993, 240pp, 300 color illustrations, $40),
American garden writer Elvin
McDonald took the words right out of
my mouth: "Pruning can be both the
most daunting and potentially most re-
warding of all gardening activities."
The art of pruning seems to perplex all
but the most advanced gardeners be-
cause it is something that you need to be
able to see in order to understand. A
friend or a teacher can't simply tell you
how to do it and few of us have the
opportunity to watch a pro and then
wait several months or years to appre-
ciate and understand the results.
In just 43 pages, McHoy covers all the
basics and this might just be the best
pruning "how and when to" book that
I've seen. The when, the how and the
what to use are detailed in a manner
that is so incredibly simple and with
such excellent illustration that I wish
I'd had the book 20 years ago. Chapter
one covers the pruning essentials and
not only does he show you where to
make certain cuts, but he goes one
important step further by explaining
what is going to happen as a result of
making a certain cut and why.
For example, few gardeners realize
that hormones have a great deal to do
with plant growth after a pruning cut is
made, but McHoy's first explanations
in chapter one cover how a cut at a
certain point on a branch results in the
release of hormones, called auxins, and
what effect this will have on growth
below the cut. It suddenly becomes ob-
vious that pruning isn't magic and we
immediately understand the effect and
result of removing the growing tips of
shoots and how it effects growth lower
down the shoot.
Examples and illustrations in the
book show the effects of pruning a
sample branch in winter, spring and
summer and how the resulting growth
is dramatically different based on the
season in which the cuts are made.
From here we go on to how pruning
works, how to make the correct cuts
and which tools to use for specific
jobs.
Chapter two moves on to basic tech-
niques and here there are ample photo-
graphs augmented by diagrams and
very easy - to-follow text explaining how
to prune out problem areas, clipping to
Andrew Messinger is the garden colum-
nist of The Southampton Press and
Hampton Chronicle -News.
shape, reducing growth by half, dead-
heading and five other areas including
establishing and maintaining a frame-
work of structure for trees and shrubs.
Chapter three is an encyclopedia of
trees, shrubs and climbers and how to
handle them. From Abelia to Zenobia,
the author covers hundreds of plants
including color pictures and diagrams
that are appropriate to certain plants
pruning idiosyneracies. Subsequent
chapters cover pruning and training
trees, such as getting them to weep,
pollarding, maintaining hedges (there
IS more than one way to shape a privet),
pruning and training fruit trees includ-
ing renewing older, neglected fruiters.
There's also a comprehensive glossary
and index.
I work with a garden designer who
refuses to commit most of his work to
paper. He carries a bound book with
blank plages that he keeps copious notes
in, but in spite of all my protestations he
will not commit his designs to paper in
any graphical manner except for a four -
year -old sketch that simply outlines the
gardens with notes like "red section"
and "yellow area." It drives me crazy
because we seem to lose historical per-
spective on what's going on in the gar-
Gardens and not
simply feasts
for the eye; they
can stimulate all
the senses.
den and what was planted where and
when. For Christmas, I will undoubt-
edly give him copy of Gemma Nesbitt's
Garden Graphics, How to Plan and Map
Your Garden ( Capability's Books, 1993,
184pp, 49 color photos, 29 plans and
1,350 graphic plant symbols, $35).
Nesbitt describes the necessity for a
graphical description of a garden and
makes it easy to accomplish, even for
non - artists like myself. She stresses the
need for graphical representations and
plans as opposed to random notes or
other methods because "A garden map
or plan has one great advantage over
both painting and photography —the
names of plants, their positions in rela-
tion to each other, and any changes in
design can all be recorded." And if
you've ever worked with a 200- foot -long
by 15 -foot -wide perennial border, then
you know why it's important to be able
to find plant locations; the plants seem
to magically disappear or go dormant
when it's planting or transplanting time,
to say nothing of maintaining color,
texture and size harmonies.
All gardeners from beginners to pro-
fessional designers will find this book at
least helpful and at most insightful.
There is a section on the history of
garden graphics and the "how to" infor-
mation, such as creating a basic garden
plan, photocopying it and then using
colored marking pens to project sea-
sonal color changes without having to
redraw the plan is priceless. This is a
$400 garden planning class in a $35 book
and the dictionary of nearly 1,400 plant
symbols from Abelia to Zinnia, herbs,
vegetables, path and paving patterns,
topiary and mazes, fencing, hedges and
garden structures and more make me
wish I'd had the book while taking two
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Ten years ago I had a rose garden of
more than 200 plants and without a
doubt roses are one of my favorite
flowers. But the ravages of deer, the
tenacity of black spot, the recurrence of
aphids and the persistence of Japanese
Beetles led me to throw in the towel and
give up the collection.
I never thought I'd want my own
roses again until I began to hear and
read about David Austin, an English
rose breeder who is so possessed with
his passion for this plant that he has
developed anentirely new class of roses,
the first since the 1930s, that are now
fittingly and simply called English roses.
For more than 30 years, Austin has
taken the tedious and painstaking steps
to develop roses that combine beauty of
form, color, and fragrance with the
promise of disease resistance and a
welcome ability to flower, Bower again,
and then again.
Now Austin has written a book, David
Austin's English Roses: Glorious New
Roses for American Gardens (Little,
Brown & Co., 1993, 160pp, 200 color
photos and 15 drawings, $40) that cap-
tures the thrill of a new invention. This
very well written and easily read book
is a tour, an educaion and a tease. It is
a tour of Austin's work during the past
30 years and an education as to how and
why he has dedicated his life to working
on the English rose; it is a tease because
the photography is so magnificent that
you'll probably want every flower pic-
tured. Even the planting combinations,
referred to as "orchestrations," are so
spectacular, tight and up close that you
come within millimeters of touching
and smelling their deliciousness.
The book is divided almost evenly
into two sections. The first six chapters
cover the history, development and uses
of these roses in numerous garden and
specimen settings followed by a long
chapter describing 80 different variet-
ies of English rose. Each picture is
accompanied by a scaled rating in two
categories, overall assessment and fra-
grance on the basis of one star being
below average to three stars being very
good. The breeding history is included
as well as the appellation and date of
introduction ... all good information to
have when shopping for English roses.
An American source list can be found
on the last page of the book.
This is unquestionably one of the best
written and photographed gardening
books that I've seen in many years and
will delight any rose gardener or any
gardener whose green or greening
thumb is ready for something new.
As a student in a landscape design
course some time ago, I had the great
fortune of being taught by a professor
who was a remarkably inspiring land-
scape architect and mentor. Each class
was a challenge and a thrill as we
worked on projects transforming the
ideas of the brain into visual presenta-
tions. The professor let us view and
watch as he worked on his projects and
I will never forget his brilliantly de-
signed sensory garden ... for the blind.
That garden has always reminded
me that gardens are not simply feasts
for the eye, but that when well done
each of our five senses can be stimu-
lated by a garden, no matter how large
or modest. Jeff Cox, in his newest book
Creating a Garden for the Senses
(Abbeville Press, 1993, 192pp, 150 color
illustrations, $35) not only covers gar-
dening for sight, smell, touch, sound
and taste but he adds a sixth intuitive
sense: "one that perceives a reality be-
yond the material world."
If the name Jeff Cox rings a bell it's
probably because of either his 1985 book
The Perennial Gardener, which sold
450,000 copies, or his articles for Rodale
Press and Organic Gardening maga-
zine. He has a loyal following and is not
just a prolific writer, but a good one who
writes with authority, humor and inspi-
ration
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'Home Fires'
At Bay Street
This holiday season, Bay Street
Theatre Festival in Sag Harbor is
presenting something a little
different —its first musical.
"Home Fires" by Linda Thorsen
Bond, William Repicei and
Charles Busch features classic
'40s songs in new arrangements
designed to appeal even to mo-
dern '90s kids.
Set at a London military base
during the blitz, "Home Fires"
spotlights an all -girl hand on a
USO tour giving the broadcast
performance of their lives in or-
der to give a little seasonal cheer
to the homesick boys. Armed with
only their talent and their musi-
cal instruments, they confront a
series of surprises over the course
of the evening with delightfully
camp and good- humored style.
Directed by acclaimed Off -
Broadway director Kenneth Elli-
ott, the show features a multi-
talented cast of actresses who not
only sing and dance, but play mu-
sical instruments: Debra Barsha,
Marcy McGuigan, Jackie Sand-
ers and New York cabaret star
Mary Clecre Harran, with musi-
cal back -up provided by Mickki
Ryan and Kim Bonsanti.
Performances of "Home Fires"
will begin December 15 and run
through January 2, Wednesdays
through Mondays, with no per-
formance on Christmas Eve. The
theatre is offering a special 15
percent discount for seniors and
students, as well as a two-for-one
discount ticket for veterans.
Vouchers for discounted tickets
on preview and matinee perfor-
mances will also be available at
many Sag Harbor business estab-
lishments. Children under 12 can
see the show for half- price.
Imagine the delightful sensory over-
load of a garden in which you smell
fragrant roses and blooming jasmine,
touch a gritty stone wall or a bank of
moss, taste heavenly peaches and suc-
culent berries and see harmonious corn -
binations of shapes and explosions of
incredible color. It takes planning and
knowledge, two tools that Cox delivers
and easily allows you to understand so
that you can put the tools to work in
your little piece of heaven.
There's also a comprehensive index,
but don't expect to find much based on
the table of contents since the page
numbers referenced by each chapter
are very, very wrong. Hopefully this
will be corrected by an addenda or
reprinting, but for now it's just a mad-
dening frustration that you can prob-
ably live with.
23
Focus on Nature
Binocular Perspective
By Paul Stoutenburgh
A group of old friends from Brook-
haven came out to visit me recently and
see the North Fork. Of course they had
their binoculars— required equipment
for any real sightseeing in the natural
world. Today, with the relatively low
cost of binoculars, there is no reason for
a family to go without a pair. And if
you've got them, they should not be
tucked away in a drawer somewhere
when you are out sightseeing.
Our first stop was just down the road,
where the newly - arrived bufflchead
ducks were enjoying themselves diving.
These easily-spotted ducks can be iden-
tified by even the most inexperienced
naturalist, for their small black-and-
white ever - moving bodies give them
away at first glance. I'm sure that some
were this year's birds, ducklings that
had been raised in a cavity of a tree like
the wood duck. It's hard to think of
ducks living in trees, but several spe-
cies do, including the wood duck, buffle-
head, hooded merganser and others.
We even saw a double - crested cor-
morant working the bottom of the creek,
which some 15 years ago would have
been a rarity. We're seeing more and
more of these long- necked pointed bill
divers. Perhaps the ever-expanding col-
ony of cormorants that has been estab-
lished on Gardiners Island in the last
few years is the reason we're seeing so
many more of them.
From there we went over to the cause-
way where we had a grand view of the
bay. Here were the common loons. Gone
was the gaudy speckled black- and -white
attire with its white necklace. Loons are
a much larger bird than the cormorant
and can stay in the water practically
forever, while the cormorant likes to
come out and warm up.
Now we headed for the shore by the
sound, where a strong northwest wind
was blowing. At Town Beach we found
the common gull patrolling the beach,
and not much else. We had all been look-
ing offshore for ducks when someone
said "Look right in front of us on the
beach." There, all heading into the
wind, were 100-150 laughing gulls closely
packed together. Evidently they had
been fishing and returned with full bel-
lies and were now content to rest.
We were heading east toward the
point, stopping here and there to look
over the open water. At one point we
could see the flashing white wings of
huge birds far to the north. Even with
our best binoculars they were hard to
distinguish, but when we got out the 20x
scope they were easily recognized.
Gannets —birds associated with the
open ocean- -were easily recognized in
their prime plumage of all white, with
the exception of their black wing tips.
They scan for fish 50 to 100 feet in the
air and the prey below is usually caught
after the gannet's spectacular dive that
shoots the bird like a whits rocket into
the water below.
At one spot along our travels we found
15 brant, a smaller cousin of the Can-
ada goose, feeding in a sheltered cove
on seaweed. They were out of their us-
ual shallow salt flat areas of the south
side. With the aid of our scope we picked
out three purple sandpipers resting in
the shelter of a huge rock.
At one place we found Bonaparte
gulls, those small almost tern -like birds
that often join in the frenzy of feeding
when bluefish chase bait to the surface.
They, too, like the gannets and purple
sandpipers, are found throughout the
winter here on the East End. Now old -
squaw ducks were seen racing along the
water, only to wheel and drop with their
usual splash. These black- and -white
medium size sea ducks can usually be
seen throughout the winter in our bays,
sound and ocean. Deep bottom feeders,
they are continually diving and calling
amongst themselves. Scoters were also
seen —both the white - winged and the
surf scoter —which are moving into our
area for the winter. These big heavy
black-colored ducks with a white wing
spot on the former and a white patch on
the head of the latter can number in the
thousands as they raft up over good
mussel feeding grounds.
Laughing gulls rest on the beach after feeding on baitfish. —Paul Stoutenburgh Photo
Oak 9arniN cwt4es q_ aUh 9;rAA a
C i ne ssanK or ine nampions, N.A.
Member FDIC
THE SOUTHAMPTON PRESS I DECEMBER 9, 1993