Viridescent = Iridescent Green
___________________________

Etymology: Latin viridis green + iridescent

Originated Circa 1847

An iridescent surface is one that appears to change color

as the angle of view or the angle of illumination changes.

 “It is hard to photograph sparkle”

Isaac Mizrahi, 2009

_______________________________________

______________________________________

When you see a prefix of  Ver- or Vir-,

you can suspect the word may refer to greenness of some kind.

Viridity
____________________

Viridity is a noun denoting the quality or state of being Green, either in reference to color, or to the alternate meaning of youth or naive immaturity, described by the French, middle English or Latin root origins of the prefixes Vir- and Ver-.

Pluralised, this becomes Viridities = Many green qualities.
_________________________________________

Some other nice green words are:

Viridis = general green of any shade

Viridiflorus, viridiflora and viridiflorum = green flowered

Viridifolia = green leaved

Vireo = refers to a family of small, typically greenish birds

Veridian = a chrome green pigment between green and cyan on the color wheel.

Verdancy = noun referring to greenness.

Verdant = an adjective describing the greenness in hue, generally of growing things. It has a lush sort of connotation to it.

Verdure = greenery, green growing things.

Verdigris  = the greenish patina color of oxidised copper, from the French ‘vert de grice’, literally, the green of Greece.

You may also find the Vir- inside a word, as with

Atrovirens = dark green

or Flavovirens = yellowish green.
______________________________________________________

And then there is this very lovely word referring to the

greenness of the soul -

Viriditas
____________________

In the 12th century, this word began to be used to describe the inspiring “greening power of God”,
referring to the animating life-forces within all creation. (Hildegard of Bingen)

 
____________________________________________________

The post Good Green Words appeared first on A Reasoned Landscape.

In February and later, nicely shaped cut branches of  Forsythia
brought inside to a vase with lots of water
will flower gracefully within 2 weeks.

Yes, it really is as simple as that. Just keep the water refreshed, nearly to the top of the container.

If you cut some pieces just as February begins, you should have flowering by Valentine’s Day. If you cut some a little before Feb. 1st and some a little after, you can be sure to have plenty whose flowering time is just right.
If you take groups of Forsythia cuttings at interval cycles of a couple of weeks, you can have fresh flowering branches from now through the time this shrub flowers outside.

I have a friend who keeps her bunches in an unused bathtub. She likes fresh armloads of it around in February, March and April.
Personally, I just pop some shapely stems into the intended vases right after cutting them and enjoy watching the buds swell and then flower. I swap out these branches for fresh ones, cut at a later date, when I want another round of sunny yellow.

If, instead, you nonchalantly leave the branches in the vase after the flowers have dropped, and you keep the water refreshed, the stems will soon have fresh leaves. These can be pretty too. You would just have to be willing to pick up the fallen flowers, and to be patient waiting for the foliage.

The photo includes purchased Anemones and Daffodils, but the Forsythia and the sword shaped Arum leaves are straight from my garden in February.
Unless covered with snow, the nearly evergreen Arum italicum pictum is an amazing perennial whose foliage can be cut  for one’s vases throughout every winter.
I will be writing about this plant and other evergreen perennials very soon. 

You will have to find a Forsythia to trim, but our ecotome is full of them and most would benefit from some annual pruning. This is a multi-purpose time to do some of it. Each shrub has so very many flowers that a few stems from considerate places will never be missed.

If you haven’t got one of these rambling reliables, you can ask a neighbor or friend, or respectfully diminish a shrub that is encroaching on a public way.
If, by mistake or on purpose, you prune stems from some other kind of rambunctious shrub instead, don’t worry. It may give you lovely leaves for your vase. Surprises can be sweet. You might have to wait quite a while though. Some shrubs and trees are difficult to bring into leaf or flower indoors. You can try. The grace of the branches alone can be satisfying, but if any of your experimental stems displeases you, just subtract it.

Another Good Candidate

Salix hakuro nishiki is a beautiful willow with variegated leaves in summer. If you take in these slender red stems in February or March and treat them the same as Forsythia branches, you may get charming tiny catkins along their length. It has been widely planted in recent years, so you might find a good gardener who could spare some modest branches.
This Salix is a great treasure, and I rarely make a landscape without one somewhere, but it is a fast grower can be hard to keep up with if you are trying to keep it small. Luckily, that same enthusiasm lets you prune it quite alot, just about any time of year, and it will be right back.
Through the warm seasons their delicate green and white leaves make these useful in arrangements.

 Some Other Considerations

Considerate winter pruning for decorative branches of Forsythia would be to take each stem nicely back to any growing point. These shrubs typically grow several feet a year, so trimming off  branches 2 or 3 feet long will just give you back a few feet for that individual to grow into for next year. There will still be innumerable quantities of flowers on any well grown specimen.
Just don’t shear Forsythia back in summer or fall since this unnatural technique removes many of the buds and makes unnatural stubs. You would lose the possibility of graceful branches of indoor and outdoor flowers that year.

As a shrub, Forsythia is perhaps most attractive in a fountainesque form. The correct general pruning technique to accomplish this would be to cut some of the oldest and woodiest of  its stems all the way to the base of the shrub, and take away crossover branches that interfere with the fountain shape. This will rejuvenate the overall plant. Other needed pruning is best accomplished soon after flowering so as not to cut off branches when they are preparing flower buds for the following year. Forsythia is forgiving. Whatever you do, these plants will recover.

While not a favored plant for a small landscape because of its overenthusiasm and taking ways, it announces spring wherever it resides, and having one tucked into a corner somewhere can be precious in giving you free winter flowers forever.

______________________________________________________________________________________________

For Valentine’s Season
I want to refer you to this beautiful
Film of  Free Hugs Day
from Milan, Italy

Since the Idea of Free Hugs began in 2004, such events have taken place
all over the world.
Films have been made of these special days
in myriad individual cities.

The First Saturday after June 30th is the appointed day each year, Worldwide.
In 2013 that will be July 6th.

________________________________________________________________________________________________

The post Free Flowers for Valentine’s Day and Beyond appeared first on A Reasoned Landscape.

The post Recycling Christmas Greens appeared first on A Reasoned Landscape.

Some More Things They Never Tell You.

Save the final blowing and cleaning of your diverse planted beds until after the ground is cold hardened.

• For the thorough cleaning of beds in which perennial and self sowing plants reside, it is safer for those inhabitants if you wait until frosts solidify the ground.
  Necessary walking in the beds and the directed winds of the finish blowing then happen after the hard ground closes and protects the subterranean tenants.
  ……
• I will imagine that you have been lightly cleaning the leafage throughout the fall, now you can safely finish up. For earlier raking, I find that a soft fingered rubber rake is the only tool gentle enough to leave the perennial crowns and soft earth undisturbed.
  ……
• Where shallow rooted plants and self sowers you treasure reside, you may want to keep the blower away altogether and just work on those areas by hand.
  Where the parent plants or I have sown seed I may set a croquet hoop or a ten penny nail in the ground to remind me to be thoughtful in that place, both for the present and then in the spring cleanup.

Don’t let your Trees and Shrubs go Dry into winter weather.

• It is very important for your plant materials to have moisture at their roots before the hard winter sets in. Nature usually provides this end of season water, but you will want to be watchful.
  If nature does not provide at this important time, it will be valuable if you can bucket or otherwise provide some water to any trees and shrubs you have planted within the last few years.
  ….
• Full settlement time for your recent plantings is estimated as at least a year per inch of  girth.

Anti Dessicant Sprays

• If your plant residents are in the path of extreme drying winds through winter, this can have a damaging effect. Many kinds of evergreens can benefit from an anti dessicant (= anti-drying) spray, which can provide a protective coating on their leaves or needles that helps them hold on to moisture within their sylvan selves.…….

Winter Work for your Buildings and Grounds
…..

• For construction, repair or painting projects on structures and buildings lying behind the planted beds, the safest time of year will be now and soon, or just pre-spring, before the first bulb thinks about coming up.
  …….
• When the ground is frozen solid you can walk everywhere with impunity,  so this is a good time to transport needed things across your planted land if doing so might cause damage to your soft grounds at other times of the year.
  ….
• With a durable hard freeze, you might even get a bobcat in if you needed one.
  …
• Or move a building across a lake or pond.
  In long ago times, before elaborate trucks came along to help us, this was a typical practice, requiring alot of patience, alot of man and beast power and perfect timing. Where it was the shortest distance between two points, buildings that needed to do so crossed the water with specialised boats, or on sled contructs over ice.
  …..
• Overland night trucking is probably the go-to solution now, especially since some bodies of water in our region used to freeze most years, and now almost never do. Also, we have no oxen and few horses to help.
  In places that still have a thick hard freeze transport over ice is still done, but trucks usually do the pulling.

Arrange Your Winter Views

• In winter much of the essence of the landscape is expressed through its embedded shapes. Every element in the built and structured landspace reveals the form of its true self when the white overlay of snow arrives to outline all its details.
  …
• If you arrange all the objects in your landscape thoughtfully; sorting, stacking, coiling and otherwise neatening before snow comes, you can make your landscape appearance more sculpturally satisfying for the whole winter. Try to take care of these things before the ground hardens and the buckets and such freeze solid.
  In our climate, the good effect of your end of season attentions will last for several months.
  …….
  
  …
• Evergreens and architecturally fortunate trees and shrubs, wonderful stone, wood and iron elements are set off at their personal best. You can count on them. If you have placed them nicely, your work will spring freshly to life with the upcoming brushstroke outlines of snow.
  …
• The wheelbarrow  photograph was taken next door to one of my favorite nurseries, the Conifer Connection in Pembroke, Massachusetts.
  
  

The post Winter Preparation appeared first on A Reasoned Landscape.

………………………………………………………………R.S.

A series of purposefully taken photographs can provide elevational views of your landscape and buildings for use as ‘working images’ to draw on or trace over. By enlarging such photos and sketching on them, you can begin to see how your ideas will look as you approach them in the 3 dimensional world. It won’t matter much if the photos are not prizewinners, since what you are after are image tools to help you see the shape outlines of the things you’re thinking about. With such a series you can readily reflect on whichever context you happen to be thinking about in your designs, even after dark and in the winter.

Aside from their usefulness in the work, these ‘before pictures’ are like baby pictures – they can’t be taken later. Having them will help you appreciate how far you have come as your projects develop.

The trouble is, two dimensional paper images will not easily convey what you will see and feel at all locations, heights and angles when you experience a landscape. The considerate shaping of features of the property  depends upon the relational appearances of the elements, as seen from many different places, and so is both a two and a three dimensional matter. Three dimensions are difficult to imagine without an experiential component.

You will probably sketch things, and you will have lots of measurements and paper information, but to fine tune each project, you will also want to pre-visualise it as best as possible on the site.

“If the designer is forced by complications to figure things out on paper, the final result will be better
if the plan is then memorized and hidden, and the work
laid out on the ground with the help of stakes and string”

Fletcher Steele / Gardens and People

Whether regarding stone projects, wooden structures, garden bed shapes or individual tree and plant placements, the details of whatever you will be making are often best sorted out where they will come into being. Opportunities and problems will show themselves with this approach, and so you can usually improve your process and the quality of your outcome if you tangibly work through the details in the place.

“….prototypes, even quick and dirty ones,
shed light on how a concept meets real world needs.”

Tim Brown / Change By Design

 Adusting the Shapes

The shaping of elements that are part of your overall landscape design can be explored with simple visual aids.
On the ground plane, I use lengths of white, 5/8ths inch Dacron™ braided line to lay out the shapes I am considering so that I can experience them close at hand and from a distance. I find that pieces 25 to 40 feet long are my favorites, having a carrying and casting weight allowing them to be readily at hand  and easily tossed about. This kind of non-stretchy line is used for boats and so can be purchased in marine supply stores. Arborists use similar rope, but white is harder to find in their supply stores, and it is my favorite color for the application.
I am very fond of my lines, and consider them essential tools. Their malleable braided form allows smooth curves and outline details to be created and subtly adjusted.
…

Don’t let anybody convince you to use hoses except in an emergency. If they are the least bit kinky, which hoses almost always are when stretched out, they will be useless.
When my rope is laid out to make the form I think I want, with white water soluble paint or chalk from invertible spraying cans, I spray a dashed line over the rope. I can then take the same piece of rope to lay out the next section of the proposed work. For a multisided configuration, like a path or patio, I may use two lines, to help visualise the relational layout before I need to spray anything.

 “With pins you keep things open, with thread you finalise them” 

Sonia Rykiel

Now you can stand back from your tentative marks a while to look at, walk around, and think about the shapes that have been preliminarily decided.

Live with them a while, and see if you can optimise them in any way you hadn’t thought of before you started physically thinking about them.
This is the time to adjust relational shaping, even if not all the elements you are outlining are part of this particular year’s projects. You are anticipating the future, both in terms of the process of the building and the life in the completed place, so as to better prepare for it.

When everything seems just about right, I lay the ropes on each section again, and overspray them with a continuous visible line. This outline becomes the cut line for the work.
On grass or moist earth, the paint lines last a couple of weeks, but if you’re still thinking, in a very few minutes you can easily respray over your existing line and get a couple of more weeks to consider things. If you don’t like what you did and want a clean start, a couple of mowings will erase them.

If your layout with the line runs over existing structures where chalk paint might not come off easily, you can use large sticks of sidewalk chalk to write temporarily on stone, wood and even a painted house. Chalk markings are truly ephemeral since the first rain may wash them away, but once you have decided your shapes by using chalk as a visual aid, a good graphite pencil, grease pencil or mason’s marking chalk will serve for more permanent reference points, final markings to inform the upcoming work.
…
Snow is also a useful tool.
The great thing about snow as a medium is that it comes right to your house and presents you with a full clean canvas, allowing you to ‘draw’ everywhere within your connected landscape, at full scale and all at the same time with your feet as the principal tools. As you wander through the landscape you can physically mark the outlines of shapes that you are thinking about creating. You will be exploring the tangible ‘footprints’ of your future built projects, planted beds and the paths to such things. (see also ‘Drawing in Snow and Sand‘)

More About RopeRopemaking to Rule the Waves

Hemp and natural fibers of many kinds have been used in ropemaking for thousands of years, going back to China, circa 28 BC. Hemp was so widely used in the making of canvas and rope in Holland that the English word ‘Canvas’ when translated into Dutch was ‘Cannabis’, the Genus name of the Hemp plant. The Dutch currently use the English word ‘canvas’ as their own word for the fabric.

At the time it was acquiring colonies, the tarred Hemp used by England’s sailing vessels was the finest rope in the world, and it is widely thought that this superior rope allowed England to ‘rule the waves’. If you think about it that way, rope is the true engine of the sailing vessel, fueled by the wind.

Hemp came to North America with the Pilgrims,  and was planted and then used for ropes and fabrics in the colonies. In fact, growing Hemp in the 1600s was mandatory in some places, and was encouraged throughout the colonies in the 1700s. Around the time of the Revolutionary War, Hemp could even be used as legal tender to pay your taxes. Between 1763-1769 in Virginia it was illegal not to allow Hemp to be grown on your land.

Hemp was largely replaced by Manila from the Abaca plant, found in the Phillipines in the mid 1800s. This material had greater strength and so supplanted Hemp, Sisal and Jute for many applications. Growing Hemp was banned in this country after 1860.
…

Though a rope may seem a simple and humble thing in our times, a hundred years ago all ropes were handmade in ‘ropewalks’, typically twisted from 3 strands of hemp, sisal or jute material.

In a Ropewalk,

“yarns (are) stretched out between revolving hooks that twist the yarns together, the ropemaker walking backwards all the while”

From The Story of Rope / Plymouth Cordage Co. 1931

With the technology of the 1800s, to make a given length of line, one had to have a building of that length, a remarkably long and narrow construct, often existing close to the water’s edge because ship riggings required especially long lines. The longest rope making building on our coast measured 1350 feet, in Charlestown, Massachusetts. There are few such places left since manufacturing techniques no longer require these extraordinary buildings.

During the time of World War 2,  the supplies of Manila materials for rope and the silk for fabrics were cut off because they originated from hostile parts of the world. In the same way that used metal was collected and melted down for military equipment, Americans were asked to save even scrappy bits of old rope for reuse.

Hemp, which had not been much used in the USA since 1860 when it became illegal to grow, was pressed back into service. You needed a permit to grow it, but the country needed the material, and so growing hemp was again encouraged.

By 1939, Nylon material was developed by Dupont and was found to be useful in parachutes and netting. At some point, a Liutenant Colonel stationed overseas, realising that strong rope was urgently needed for cliff ascents and other military purposes toward the end of the war, suggested that it might be made out of this Polyamid known as Nylon.

Proudly, New Bedford, Massachusetts produced the first 3 strand synthetic rope, making it possible for cliffs be climbed, ships and parachutes rigged, and the War won.

Developed later, Dacron™ was Duponts’ trade name for its special polyesters. Since the strength to weight ratio is very high, it holds its shape and doesn’t weaken when wet, it makes an ideal braided rope.

Your Own Rope

Knowing what once went into making rope makes me think of my ropes as especially great treasures.

The best ones for the landscape purposes I describe are made from synthetic Dacron™ materials, braided with a braided core. If you invest in one of these, it is likely to be useful over and over again in your landscape and general life. My working lines have lasted 30 years and look like they’ll keep going for lots more. Once in a while I hose them down or let them get rained on and dry them in the sun, but overall, they get better with age, with the traces of earth and chalk paint as patina. I keep one in my car at all times.
Depending upon what it is I am transporting, the rope can be rigged to help keep things from sliding around, act as a cushion, support or weight and of course, you can tie something down or hang something up if you need to.

Visualising Heights

For considering choices for the heights of things in the landscape that will be near eye level from some vantage points, any old 2 by 4 or wood stake five feet or so long can help. You will want someone to hold it horizontally for you at the heights being considered so you can stand away and consider the effects of different choices. This process will help you to visualise the proposed elements in the landscape, clarifying what can be revealed or concealed, or perhaps how a particular sloped angle versus a level line will look in the context when developed as a wall, fence, shaped earth or whatever.

When considering heights 3 feet or less above the ground level, I put up vertical stakes and link them with a masonry line to see and adjust the contour / location choices. I like 3/8ths” rod iron or 1 1/4″ wood stakes. You will probably need a heavy hammer (a two pound one is good) to get each stake solidly into the ground, so you can pull the masonry line taut between them.

For flat stonework, to see the proposed grade of something which will be less than a few inches above the existing ground level, I may just use 10″ nails connected with masonry line.
These large nails can also be helpful in marking individual locations you need to keep track of for other reasons. They are so useful and easy to have around that I keep a collection of them to press into service as needed.
…

A useful accompaniment to visualizing anything with masonry line is a ‘line level’, or as my Italian masons say, a ‘piccolo livello’, translated as the ‘little level’. This is an inexpensive, pocket sized tool and yet is quite accurate. It slips onto the masonry line to tell you where real world level is, so that you can work in relation to that. I wouldn’t want to be without one since this tool comes into play in many aspects of both the planning and the tangible building of landscape projects. It is hard to find a metal one these days, most of them are plastic, but they all work the same way.
When you get your line, be sure it is true masonry line, or your line level won’t slide along on it properly.

Visualising Plantings

Whenever Adrian Bloom of Bressingham Gardens in England set about designing permanent plant materials into his beds, initially an assortment of stakes would appear, set into the proposed planting places. They would be left long enough to experience from all perspectives, and moved around until the best considered design emerged. The handsome beds within his properties are world renowned.

People as Trees

You may find friends posing as trees to be very helpful.

To inform him in thinking about locations for trees, Frederick Law Olmstead found it helpful to have people stand in likely places, sometimes even having them raise their arms up to be more realistically arboreal. He would have them move around, like pawns on the landscape, until their relationships seemed just right, then mark the chosen locations.

You could do this as a party game, if you needed to site a lot of trees.

I am grateful to Dave Richards, the Technical Director of The Cordage Institute, for our clarifying conversations about the history of rope.

The post Shaping Your Landscape appeared first on A Reasoned Landscape.