The Garden Boss Is in the Hoss…er, House

William Moss is not simply The Garden Boss…

(June 10, 2018)  …he is also a horticultural educator; garden coach, designer and trainer; media personality, speaker, and author. His book, Any Size, Anywhere Edible Gardening is a practical look at getting growing in your own backyard and other areas close to home. In fact, William’s home website is not surprisingly called GetOutandGrow.org.

In addition to teaching people how to transform their outdoor spaces into their dream gardens, Moss enjoys working with students by using landscapes as living learning NGSS (Next Generation Science Standards) AND STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art & Design, and Math) laboratories. As Moss explains,

Using a holistic, multidisciplinary approach to lessons, our programs can also incorporate nutrition, fitness, and wellness into garden activities. The culmination of these efforts help to improve student proficiency and simultaneously enhance aesthetics of the school and surrounding community.

Get Out and Grow also features something that they call the “Mossies.”

These plants were selected for their productivity, resistance, resilience, hardiness, and beauty in tough situations, like community plots, low maintenance yards, and exposed rooftops.  2017 was another warm year (hottest on record) with periodic droughts, pest and disease outbreaks, and ferocious storms with gusty winds.

Among the 2018 Mossie winners are

• Stringy Stonecrop (Sedum sarmentosum), which received the Overall Performance Award
• Fairy Candles (Actaea ramosa cultivar), the winner for container plants
• Marjoram (Oregano majorana), herb award winner
• Sun Gold Tomato (Solanum ‘Sun Gold’), tomato winner
• Aunt Molly’s ground cherry (Physalis pruinosa ‘Aunt Molly’), volunteer award

And one award that you might not anticipate,

• Robins (Tardus migratorius), which received the Worst Pest Award, Parts I and II for 2018!

I find robins to be delightfully brazen and entertaining, which is exactly why William Moss added them to those two lists. To each his own in the garden, I guess.

The Garden Boss last joined Peggy and me from the 2018 Chicago Flower & Garden Show at Navy Pier. Because we were parading garden guests through the show, that was necessarily a short visit. Today, Mr. Moss is on for the entire first hour. So bring your questions to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and, of course, at 877-711-5611.

Why are we still fighting this battle?

I was cruising Facebook a few weeks back when I saw a post from Benjamin Vogt. In case you don’t remember, Vogt is a landscaper and author who was on The Mike Nowak Show last October to talk about his book, A New Garden Ethic: Cultivating Defiant Compassion for an Uncertain Future. So it’s not as if he’s some jamoke who throws plants into his yard without considering their effect. In fact, quite the opposite.

So when I saw the photo:

I knew there was going to be fight. Along with the photo, he posted this comment:

And so the fight begins for the backyard meadow. No letter. No notice on door. Instead, a tall stake with a large orange piece of paper driven into the middle of the front yard. Looks like I’ll have to name every native plant one by one for an inspector.

My immediate response was something along the lines of, “Are you effing kidding me?” That’s because this is an issue that we’ve dealt with before on this program. In January of 2013, I interviewed a Chicago resident named Kathy Cummings. As I wrote at the time,

She is the gardener who came in first place for “Most Naturalized City Garden” in the Mayor’s Landscape Awards Program in 2004. Fast forward to October of 2012, when that very same garden was cited by the Department of Streets and Sanitation for being in violation of a city weed ordinance and she was fined $640. Things change, I guess.

Her goal was to appeal the fine. The matter went to court and, as far as I know, that’s where it is to this day. Unfortunately, as I subsequently discovered, it’s the kind of issue that pops up all over the country–even in Lincoln, Nebraska, where Benjamin Vogt resides.

By the way, this is what his backyard looks like:

I’m not going to say that this is everybody’s ideal of a backyard landscape. On the other hand, I’ll make a couple of points. 1) This provides terrific habitat for many different species, which is a goal in itself. 2) If you walk among these plants can’t tell the difference between this and an overgrown lawn, you need to go back to inspector school.

Long story short, after some back and forth with the City of Lincoln over a couple of weeks, Vogt posted,

IT ALL STAYS (back and front) — Weed super and another inspector came, and when I opened the door and saw their faces I knew I was in trouble. And the first few minutes we were both in our corners and I was too emotional (I had been pacing for an hour, folks). Then we walked around, identified plants, I told them how and why I picked them, how the space evolves, how I manage it, also how I designed the front to be short and not interfere with sight lines. I named the Latin on every plant and they’re like “whoa, let’s stick to common names, you know too much.” Eventually it was a good talk where they said they wished others were doing it this way because more and more will, and they’ll have to with climate change. They asked about my classes and book (gave them a copy), what I say to people about making gardens like mine, and they hinted they might refer others to me as an example of what can happen when you work with the city and a designer.

There’s still a question about leaving plants up for the winter (the City considers them a fire hazard), but so far, this looks like a win for sanity and playing well with others.

Benjamin Vogt joins us on the show this morning to talk about a stressful few weeks. As a matter of fact, we will be calling him on the site of a plant installation in Lincoln, where he says that temperatures are predicted to be around 100°F. So Peggy and I will be doing him a favor in giving him a few minutes to cool off–literally and perhaps figuratively.