We Are the Champions

Is it possible to make plants happy?

(October 14, 2018) Short answer: don’t ask me. I’m just a radio guy who likes to garden and has had varying degrees of success doing that. That’s why we bring people like Thomas Rainer onto this show.

Thomas Rainer is a registered landscape architect, teacher, and author living in Arlington, Virginia. Thomas, a leading voice in ecological landscape design, has designed landscapes for the U.S. Capitol grounds, the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial, and The New York Botanical Garden, as well as over 100 gardens from Maine to Florida. He is a celebrated public speaker who has garnered acclaim for his passionate presentations to audiences across the U.S. and in Europe. Thomas serves as a Principal for the landscape architectural firm Phyto Studio in Washington, D.C. with Claudia West and Melissa Rainer.

If you want to know what makes Rainer tick, get a copy of his book, Planting in a Post-Wild World.  Written with Claudia West, it outlines his philosophy of bringing together ecological planting and traditional horticulture. Then check out a couple of articles about his work. One was in the New York Times under the headline Understanding What Makes Plants Happy.

Start by looking for bare soil. It is everywhere in our gardens and landscapes. Even in beds with shrubs in them, there are often large expanses of bare soil underneath. It’s incredibly high-maintenance. It requires multiple applications of bark mulch a year, pre-emergent herbicides and lots and lots of weeding.

The alternative to mulch is green mulch — that is, plants. This includes a wide range of herbaceous plants that cover soil, like clump-forming sedges, rhizomatous strawberries or golden groundsel, and self-seeding columbine or woodland poppies.

This concept is not exactly new. It was passed on to me by horticulturists years ago. One of those people is Roy Diblick from Northwind Perennial Farm in Burlington, Wisconsin, who is not a fan of open areas between plants and certainly not a fan of mulch in the garden. Rainer echoes that sentiment in an article titled Unconventional Wisdom: 8 Revolutionary Ideas for Your Garden from Thomas Rainer. But rather than beat that dead horse, I want to call your attention to something he says that I think is actually much more revolutionary:

Cover crops are not just for farmers. Rather than feeding your garden with compost or other material, use cover crops on bare soil. On empty spots where perennials have died back or annuals have run out of steam in the fall, plant a shallow-rooted crop such as the fracking forage radish (Raphanus sativus), which can be planted in August or September for green coverage all winter. In the spring, when it dies, its stems and leaves as well as its roots will break down, adding nutrients without any disturbance to the soil. In addition the decaying roots will help to aerate the soil and prevent compaction.

We’ll see how much of this we can discuss on today’s show. Like landscape architect Marcus de la fleur , who came to the studio to chat with us last week, Rainer will be part of be the IMPACT Conference on Tuesday, October 16, presented by the Illinois Landscape Contractors Association (ILCA) .

Peggy and I return to the conference this year to present a day-long series of Facebook live video interviews of the experts who will be presenting sessions on sustainable and ecological landscape practices. By the way, today, Sunday, October 14, is the last day to register for the conference. You can do that here.

Rewarding Excellence in Chicago Gardening

Peggy and I and about 150 of our friends spent a great morning at the Garfield Park Conservatory in Chicago on Saturday, October 13. That was the date of the awards ceremony for the Chicago Excellence in Gardening Awards. This is the second year that a group of eleven organizations has recognized the work of the people who make Chicago a beautiful, sustainable and welcoming place to live and work.

Those organizations are

The Mike Nowak Show
Natural Awakenings Chicago Magazine
Shedd Aquarium
Illinois Extension: Cook County
Chicago Flower & Garden Show
Chicago Park District
Forest Preserve District of Cook County
Chicagoland Gardening Magazine
Advocates for Urban Agriculture
Chicago Community Gardeners Association
GreenMark Public Relations

65 awards, representing 33 different Chicago wards were presented during the two-hour ceremony. I’m not going to list them all here, but I will tell you that four different award-winning gardens will be represented on today’s show:

Prosser Community Garden -Chicago Farm Lab (Craigin Neighborhood)
From community garden beds and student gardens serving as controlled experiments and science projects, to hügelkultur beds, permaculture guilds, a chicken coop, beehives and an experimental prairie restoration, this garden brings together students and the neighborhood on a daily basis.

They also received a special award.

“Neighborhood Transformation”:  Through a successful mix of gardening, multi-generational neighborhood involvement, and student and community education, the Prosser Community Garden and Chicago Farm Lab are helping to transform their Chicago neighborhood and bring diverse communities together through urban agriculture.

Marnie Ware is the founder of the Prosser Community Garden at Prosser Career Academy, a Chicago Public School on Chicago’s northwest side. She’s taught biology for 16 years, and is the co-founder of Chicago Farm Lab, the garden’s non-profit organization.

Lakeview Community Garden at Diversey (Lakeview)
This garden has grown from a few families in 2015 with the enlisted help of Bacino’s Restaurant,  Alderman Tom Tunney, Illinois Extension Services, Chicago Park District and the Diversey Driving Range to include a total of 65 families now. This garden exemplifies the adage ‘Gardens grow Communities!’ Each year they have included more families and split their plots so that others won’t be excluded. They are saving seeds and composting and have included pollinator plants & recycled items in their plans.

Nancy Juda and Lorraine Kells are actively involved with the Lakeview Community Garden at Diversey.

Keeler Gardens (Old Irving Park)
When your garden judge writes that “Keeler Gardens is a shining star,” you sit up and pay attention. Every detail of this garden is perfect. The owners are open and giving to their community. Keeler Gardens as a horticultural and educational dream come true for Chicago.

Ed Caplan is the Executive Director at Keeler Gardens, NFP, and Gina Iliopoulos is the Chief Horticultural Specialist.

Southside Occupational Academy Gardens (Englewood)
This is a remarkably large school garden, with an orchard of 36 trees, a greenhouse and two edible gardens. In addition to raised beds, there is a pumpkin/melon patch with corn, beans and potatoes growing between the rows. The school even added bees, chickens and ducks this year. Last year, they started a farmers market.

Regina Hawkins is a Horticulture Teacher and Special Education Teacher at Southside Occupational Academy, a Chicago Public School on Chicago’s south side. She was on The Mike Nowak Show with Peggy Malecki in October of 2016