Observations of nature in relation to COVID-19

  It's a beautiful spring day.  The sun is shining, birds are singing, flowers blooming and yet the world is somehow in a state of madness.  I just returned to my office from a walk in the nature preserve that is behind my house and office.  For those of you practicing 'social distancing' there is no better way to do it than a nice walk in the woods.  Even others that you encounter on the trails are not going to be closer than six feet by the very nature of the place.

A Redbud blooming on the edge of the woods

  Today there were more people on the trails than usual, but not nearly as many as you would have expected.  I saw many of the regulars, and I also saw many families with kids who are finishing their first week of not being in school because of COVID-19.  It was obvious that the vast majority of those families and those children had never been to the preserve before.  They were busy looking at trail maps and trying to guess how long and difficult the trails were.  With leaves just emerging there was plenty of sun reaching the trails and kids were getting to revel in it.  Think of the immune system boost they got from that additional vitamin D!
   Maybe there is a real silver lining in the panic created by this virus.  First off, it is forcing people to slow down from their usual frenetic pace.  They have to be introspective because they cannot be lost in a crowd.  Here people are actually getting a chance to slow down and look at the wonder of spring marching forward all around them.  Children who might otherwise have spent the day in a classroom receiving instruction completely separated from the world around them are getting a chance to see and experience what they have been disconnected from while in school.  Previously they have been missing the fiddle heads of the ferns emerging from their dormancy, trout lilies and understory trees blooming, small creatures going about their day and birds flitting through the trees.
  Many of the families carried sheets of paper as parents were trying to make this a teaching experience.  I had to chuckle as a group passed me and the Mom told her kids to sing out when they saw a flower.  I told them to look up; they were passing under a Cherokee Crab in full bloom.  No one had noticed.  It takes time and exposure to see the treasures in a forest.  They are much more subtle than those in a garden.   I hope this family decides that they like this experience and comes back into the woods many times in the future.  It is only with exposure that these kids will really come to appreciate the world within the forest, and it is only through that appreciation that they will understand the importance of protecting the world they live in.
  I made a couple of other observations as well though.  Children mirror what their parents do and how they respond to their environment.  The majority of the visitors today were fairly respectful of the place.  There were a couple of families that were decidedly not.  These families seem to have parents who felt that it was perfectly alright to wander way past the established trail.  Thus many young, tender and newly emerging plants were being trampled by a handful of inconsiderate and destructive people.  Flowers others were looking to see were destroyed by people who did not even bother to look at them.  One family group had a woman who was even going so far as to pick up and move logs leaving them far from their original location and disrupting the organisms that had developed a community under them.  Signs throughout the preserve asking people to stay on the trails apparently did not apply to these people.  Their children are learning to disrespect the world around them.
  One final observation needs to be mentioned.  It is spring in NC.  Pollen is a very real presence in our lives this time of year.  Coughing, sneezing and watery eyes abound. That stuff that looks like a layer of yellow snow can really wreak havoc.  Please understand that.  Don't feel a need to panic and run when you encounter someone in the throes of allergy woes.
  Go out!  Social distance and enjoy the world around you.

Where have all the bugs gone?

     I have noticed that spring is much more still than it used to be.  The flowers still eventually bud out and bloom, but there is less commotion and I miss it.  What happened?
     When I was growing up the air was literally buzzing from March through November.  Lightening bugs lit up the air all night with their small flashes of light, bees of all sizes and kinds covered flowering things, playing with (moving to other trees and generally enjoying having them walk all over you) caterpillars was an obsession easily satisfied because they were everywhere and catching grass hoppers to stare into their marble eyes and get them to hop a part of summer.

     It is mid April and I have not see a lightening bug yet.  Perhaps it is too early.  Last summer I really only saw a handful of them though.  I have see a handful of caterpillars but very few, and I have seen one grasshopper so far this year.  As for bees, only a few lonely carpenter bees have been around.  Gone is the hive that called the snag in my side yard home.
     Growing up, I remember that my mother judged her home to be clean if it had no bugs.  I can hear her in my mind saying, "Oh, their house was so dirty.  They had a ROACH!"  Was that really a sign of the home being dirty?  She has an exterminator who comes out every time she sees a bug of any kind.  Is her home any cleaner?
     She was not alone in her phobia of bugs.  I remember spray trucks rolling through the neighborhoods pouring out massive fogs of insecticide.  People saw this as a good and helpful thing.
  

I played tennis with a doubles partner who was terrified of bugs.  I remember once coming to a tennis tournament and meeting up with her mixed partner in the parking lot on the way to check in.  He wanted to know if I knew where she was.  Just as he was asking me, we heard a blood curdling scream.  We had our answer.  It was evening and they had just turned on the lights, which of course drew the bugs.
     I have a neighbor who years ago signed a contract with a 'landscaper'.  This company seems to think that chemicals will save the world.  They spray herbicide multiple times a year, fungicide throughout the summer and insecticide at will.  They have the 'perfect lawn' - nice and sterile and not a weed in sight.  Too bad it is really so ugly.  Yes, I said ugly!  Grass does not grow as a monoculture in  nature and a healthy landscape has plants with holes in their leaves and plenty of bugs.
     It seems as though people fail to realize this though.  Bugs are the ever constant villain.  Even in horror films or science fiction movies, the really terrifying element is usually some larger than life creature that closely resemble a bug.

     What most people fail to see is that that bee or grasshopper or millipede or wood roach or whatever bug you like has a purpose and a function in this world.  Some, like bees, pollinate flowers allowing them to reproduce.  Thus they are very important in allowing trees to produce fruit and plants to provide food.  Others, like the cricket, the millipede and the wood roach help break down organic matter so that it can be utilized to create a more fertile soil.  That additional organic matter in the soil acts to hold that soil in place and thus prevent erosion; it also acts to hold stormwater in the soil preventing it from running off.  They perform both the function of making plant growth better through the soil and removing debris that would otherwise simply continue to accumulate until there was no place left that was not covered.  Even bugs that people identify as having little or no purpose like mosquitos serve to feed other organisms.
     Many people claim to be patriotic and to venerate the military.  They are our 'first and most obvious means of national defense'.  What happens if we fail to have enough food to feed our nation?  What if we run out of water because the freshwater from storms has all run off or been fouled by chemicals and soil from erosion?  What if we lose our plant material because it cannot reproduce or the birds all die off because they need to eat bugs when it comes time to lay their eggs?  What if the fish disappear because they need mosquito larvae for their young?  These things may sound extreme, but if we kill off all of the insects, they could become the new reality.
     We need bugs, all bugs.  We as humans need to understand this and stop our deliberate genocide of insects.  If we fail to realize this and reverse our actions many kinds of bugs will be lost forever.  Without them we will also be lost.

Compost Day

     Today was compost day!  I know that March 25 is Greek Independence Day and the day in which Earth Hour is observed, and I realize that compost day is not a holiday, or even a special day, recognized by anyone except me.  In fact it is not even observed on the same date each year.  It simply happens on the last Saturday of March.  It has for the past twenty years.
     When I first moved into this house, it was newly constructed; in fact it was built to my specifications and following my design.  The site was also treated, more or less, to my specifications.  The site was originally heavily wooded and I chose to keep much of that forest intact.  In the front, it was actually a part of the passive solar system designed into the house and site.  In order to get an initial green, I requested that the contractor plant all areas that were no longer wooded and had been disturbed with a seeding of annual rye grass.  This allowed us to pass the final inspection and get our certificate of occupancy.  It was not a permanent grass.
     Actually, nothing planted on this site at that point would have been a permanent grass.  When the house was completed and the final grading done, any topsoil was long gone and there was nothing left but good, red Triassic Basin clay.  You know, the stuff that Carolina red bricks are made of.  Unfortunately, bricks do not grow healthy plants.  At the most I might have gotten a month out of any seed that germinated and plants put into this rock hard delight would likely have simply continued to grow in their little root ball area as if they were still in a pot.
     What my soil needed was organic matter.  It needed to be taken from purely mineral to an actual living soil.  That first year I had a truckload, think the size of a semi-trailer, of compost delivered from the only locally available compost supplier in the area at the time.  Thus it came from the closest County dump once the Health Department had deemed it completely composted and safe.  The truck pulled up to the front and dumped a huge steaming pile of black stuff said to be primarily yard waste compost.  I then spread it out over all areas that I intended to plant with either shrubs or grass.  It was about two inches deep over all of these areas when I was finished.  I borrowed a tiller and tilled all of this area with a six inch blade.  The top of my soil turned from a hard red brick to a much softer and fluffier soil with a brown tone.  I had a created six inch layer of topsoil on top of my red brick.  Then I planted it.
     What I got was good growth from the new shrubs and perennials and a nice green lawn.  That first year I planted a hybrid dwarf Bermuda grass and then after it was established I sprigged Zoysia grass.  My lawn areas went from green to a checker block of two shades of green and then eventually to a lush thick green grass.
     I committed early on in the process to not use any chemicals on my site.  Thus I was not intending to use fertilizer nor was I going to use insecticide, herbicide or fungicide.  To date, I have been able to stay within those self-prescribed limits.  I've planted things that aid naturally in bug control and used beneficial bugs to get rid of the ones that cause problems, hand weeded (with the understanding that I will not have a complete monoculture) and have used things like milk baths to keep fungus outbreaks to a minimum.  As for the greening of the site, I have my annual compost day.
     After that first massive compost endeavor, I have merely needed an annual booster shot.  I do not need or want to have a two inch layer placed on the site or a six inch till job.  What I need is a little boost.  Thus, I place a thin layer of about a half inch of compost on the beds and grass.  It filters through mulch and grass and makes its way to the soil in a week or two and then is carried into the soil by worms and other soil macrobes.  Once a year is all it takes and because it is not as much being put down, I no longer buy it by the truck load.  In fact, I "make" some of it from my own yard waste.  Once the grass greens up and I start mowing it for the year, I leave the clippings and they also fall through the grass and further help the soil.
     For anyone wanting to go natural, I would like to point out that certified compost is now widely available and you can likely find a local supplier for that initial application.  For subsequent years, you can probably get by with a few bags of prepackaged compost from a garden center.  Yesterday for compost day I got ten fifty pound bags of composted cow manure.  It was stacked and ready for me to place out this morning.  If you are trying this for the first time, I suggest that you purchase one bag and spread some of it out to see what that brand is like.  You want compost that has very little smell (indicating that it has completed the breakdown that makes compost), and a nice black color (indicating carbon).  That color should remain after the compost has had a chance to dry out.  It should not have bits of plastic or pieces of sticks and wood in it.  It should crumble easily in your hand.  Once you have a company that you can trust, buy enough to cover your entire area and spread it out.  I tend to empty each bag into a wheel barrow and then spread it out with a pot.  There is really not wrong way and any inconsistencies in placement are really not a problem.  Macrobes will help get it more evenly spread over time.  Make sure that you DO NOT fertilize.  The compost is enough - for the year.
     As for why I make the last weekend in March compost day, I take my cue from the grass.  By the last weekend in March it is just beginning to green up.  This gives the compost the opportunity to fall through to the soil before I need to mow while making good use of the warming nights and soil to get worms and others out and helping.  You can choose any day of the year that works for you.  In fact, if you have a cool season grass like fescue, you will likely want to make that day work with when that grass is not growing.  That might not be early spring.
     Welcome to the world of organic gardening!   It is actually a lot easier than you think.  After all, you will be using the natural world to do what it does best.

Our Spring Points to Global Warming!

     It is the end of March, almost Easter and it is eighty degrees today here in North Carolina.  This has been another roller coaster weather year.  We had an exceptionally warm December and a colder than average January and February.  The end result is a warmer than average winter for this area.  We have already had several very violent masses of storms pass through the state causing wind and tornado damage. 
     This is not only true for here in central North Carolina, as it turns out.  It is also true for the world.  The World Meteorological Organization announced recently that 2015 was a record hot year.  Both world ground surface and ocean bottoms have been measured as having increased in temperature.  This week NASA announced the February 2016 was on average 2.43 degrees warmer.  This was attributed in part to global warming (1.44 degrees) and in part to El Nino (0.45 degrees) as well as some warming due to unexplained causes (0.54 degrees).  The country has been rocked by several massive fronts that generated violent weather and dramatic changes.  Just this week Colorado experienced weather in the seventies and than a day later two feet of snow.

Daffodils photographed on Feb. 16, 2013.  These same bulbs had not even emerged on Feb. 16, 2016

     What does this really mean to us?  I have kept photo and written records of the advances of the season in my area for years.  Here it seems to have translated to an accelerated advance of the season.  In this area the red maples are typically the first obvious trees to bloom.  That usually happens toward the end of January.  On the ground, daffodils normally begin to bloom in mid February.  By mid April we have obvious leaf emergence and azaleas are in bloom.  This year the red maples began blooming in early February, nearly two weeks late.  Daffodils were also an average of two weeks late beginning.  Once they started blooming, however, the length of time that they were in bloom was extremely short with many bulbs only lasting a couple of days.  This was because we had cold below freezing temperatures until the end of February and then the first week of March we suddenly heated up - hitting the eighties by March 8.  This weekend, the leaf emergence is significant and the azaleas are in bloom.  They are three week earlier than they would be for a normal year.  Thus we have compressed seven to eight weeks of a normal spring into three to four weeks.

Azaleas photographed on April 19, 2009.  This same shrub is currently in bloom - March 25, 2016

     We have all heard about the terrible consequences of global warming on a global scale.  Ocean levels are predicted to rise, ice caps to melt, animals to be pushed out of their normal territory, plants and animals to be pressured and even to be pushed to extinction.  What few people are even considering is what does this do to the human population.
     As ocean levels rise, people are going to be forced to move to higher ground.  This is going to exacerbate an already volatile over-population problem world wide.  We have also experienced more violent and more frequent storms.  On a human level, this is likely not only to create issues of food shortage and health problem increases, it is also likely to exacerbate issues of violence and terrorism.  This has hit home to me this week as I have listened to reports of the bombings in Belgium.
     People who deal with global and local land planning know that two things increase the incidence of violence among the population.  The first is an increase in temperature.  People have a hard time dealing with warmer temperatures.  The higher the temperature the more aggressive people tend to become.  This is an issue that has been receiving a great deal of scientific study over the past several years.  The second issue that leads to greater violence has to do with density.  The closer that people are packed into a place the greater the amount of violence.  We need our space as living creatures or we tend to get on each others nerves. 
     Global warming is having a lot of odd effects on our lives.  We all are beginning to experience it whether we as humans are willing to admit that the problem exists or not.  We all have experienced more erratic weather with obvious changes of our seasons.  That weather has become increasingly more violent.  These changes serve as a subtle reminder of other effects that we also are all being subjected to experience, namely increased violence.  This is a problem we have all contributed to and a problem that we all need to work to fix.  It will not go away by itself and our abbreviated spring is a local subtle reminder of this problem.

Trees! Yes, They Have a Great Deal of Value!

     In this period of renewal where trees are beginning to bud out and new leaves are imminent, I am once again stunned by the various attitudes that people have toward the large woody organisms around them.  The range of reaction goes from people to understand the importance of trees and staunchly defend them all the way to the opposite side of the fence - people who find them to be something to be feared loathed and removed.

     Two conversations in the past week have struck a chord.  Both concerned trees to be cut down on private property.  The conversations were polar opposites and as such were cause for a good deal of thinking.
     The first was with a client.  She has a historic home downtown and is in the process of developing part of her property for additional residential use.  Her home is a beautiful Victorian home several stories tall and contains several large oak trees in the front yard.  Most of the trees are in great shape, but one is in decline.  It has reached old age!  It is also a 'champion' tree as defined by Town Code.  As a result of aging, it is beginning to lose back and the smaller outer branching.  Her development and the proposed Town street improvements will further stress this tree and will most likely be the straw that breaks the camel's back.  She is now needing to decide whether it is important to her to attempt to save this tree, which does greatly define her front yard, or to remove it because it is rapidly becoming a potential hazard.  This is a difficult decision for her because she has fought for this tree for years.  Her husband felt that it was a hazard a number of years ago.

     The second conversation was a bit more stunning.  One of my neighbors waved me over and began talking about removing trees from their site.  They have a half acre of mature oak trees in great shape and are currently in the process of removing them one by one.  It has been sad and sickening and tragic to see them cut these trees down.  In this case, she was busy arguing that the trees were a nuisance and that she wished that they were all cut down.  "They're dangerous!", she exclaimed.  "We had thirty thousand dollars worth of damage from trees when Fran came through.  I don't want that to happen ever again."
     It is true that many people had roof and house damage when Fran, a Category 1 hurricane when it came through this area,  ploughed its way inland.  We also had damage to our house.  But Fran came through nineteen years ago.  Hurricanes pushing their way this far inland are extremely rare.  You cannot create a situation of absolute safety.  People live in areas that are completely devoid of trees and still lose homes to hurricanes and to tornadoes that either spin off from the hurricanes or are spawned by severe thunderstorms.  As I pointed out to her during that same conversation, I had ten thousand dollars of damage to my roof five years ago due to my next door neighbor's house fire.  That was actually worse than the Fran damage because the hurricane damage was covered by homeowners insurance.  The fire was caused by my neighbor who after nine months of argument had themselves declared 'not legally liable'.  Thus neither my insurance nor their insurance covered it.  I paid for my damage out of my pocket; she paid for her damage with an insurance check.
     What my neighbor is missing is that those trees that she is busily cutting down are more valuable to her than the potential damage that she is seemingly avoiding.  Each one of those mature oak trees is worth - in crass dollars and cents - $5000 to $10,000 in the overall value of the property.  They have already reduced her property value by $40,000 to $50,000 just by their actions this past year.  That will take twenty to thirty years to recover and only if they replant immediately.
     Those trees also provide a aesthetic that it is impossible to place a value on.  Trees are wonderful to look at and help to improve mood.  Scientific study has proven repeatedly that trees create a sense of well-being and calm that is not present in an open area, even one that is planted.  That is one of the reasons why the more recent push to plant trees in school and public spaces.  That calming effect lowers the crime rate and increases the ability of a person to concentrate.
     Those trees also greatly improve the micro climate of a site.  Trees provide much needed shade which is hugely helpful in a location like ours which gets extremely hot in the summer.  Those trees that they removed were likely lowering the temperature of their house by at least ten degrees in the six months of summer that we experience here in North Carolina.  They were also acting to remove water from the soil, they have repeatedly complained about the wet soil in their back yard which is actually riparian buffer around the creek braiding that runs there.  That water is put back into the air as a result of transpiration and further acts to cool the air in the summer months.  This year their back yard will be considerably hotter and the soil much more mucky.  This same process also acts to greatly improve air quality in the vicinity of the tree.  Trees take in air - including pollutants - and expel oxygen minus the pollutants which are then sequestered within the wood of the tree.
     Finally, this neighbor has been violating Town Code.  The trees that they cut down were 'champion' trees.  They should have been removed only after having obtained a permit from the Town.  The reason for this is that the Town has come to recognize the importance and value of trees.  This kind of code is rapidly showing up all over the country.  Trees are a natural resource that effect more than the immediate property owner.  These neighbors are placing their personal choice over that of the public and breaking the law in the process.

     Trees are more than just pieces of wood sticking out of the ground.  They are living breathing organisms that provide valuable improvements to a property and to the surrounding community.  Their removal needs to be considered carefully and their loss should never be taken lightly.

Better Late than Never - Spring at Last!

     Every year I make note and mark the timing of certain landmark changes in the advance of spring. This year was an especially bad winter and as expected things were especially late in blooming and breaking their winter dormancy.  This is a somewhat unscientific averaging of observations of when I notice what I see to be landmark plant responses to the spring.  The observations have been taken over a period of twenty years and have shown an interesting trend.

Rose Cane and woods - Feb 13, 2014

     First of all, the landmark start times have varied wildly over the years with some years having very early starts and some being quite late.  This year was later than any that I have observed.  Yes, Virginia, it really was a very long and cold winter.  You were not dreaming that or exaggerating your suffering.
      The scientist in me is always fascinated to note that the dates always manage to converge to a common start time by May.  No matter how bad, or mild, the winter, at some point the plants begin their start at roughly the same date, and that point in the years seems to be early May.  That indicates that weather and temperature definitely impacts the breaking of early spring dormancy, but at some point in the year the diurnal period (the length of the day) takes over.  This year is no exception.
     The following is a listing of what I have noticed over the years:

          Red Maple - Average blooming start Jan. 20 - 2014 blooming start March 1
           - 1.5 months late
          Daffodils - Average blooming start Feb. 15 - 2014 blooming start March 15
           - 1 month late
          Oak / Pine - Average blooming start March 25 - 2014 blooming start April 7
           - 2 weeks late
          Azalea / wild iris -  Average blooming start April 20 - 2014 blooming start April 25
           - 1 week late
          Wild and hybrid rose - Average blooming start May 15 - 2014 blooming start May 12
           - on time

     It is interesting to notice this for more than just the fact that eventually the plants manage to right themselves and reach a predictable state.  It is also interesting because there is so very much debate concerning climate change.  I have listened to many poorly informed people this year claiming that this year was a perfect example of the fact that climate change is a hoax.  What they are ignoring is that one of the symptoms of climate change is just what happened this year - wildly variable and extreme temperatures.  This year Alaska had a number of days during the winter that were actually warmer than we were experiencing here in North Carolina.  We had a cold winter due to arctic air moving down into the middle of the country rather than remaining in the north where it is normally expected.  This is not a normal event.  I have noticed other things in the past twenty years.  We have greater extremes in rainfall.  We have had several years of drought and then followed them with excessively wet years.  I realize that twenty years of observations are a very short period of time in comparison to the life span of the earth and that one weird year does not indicate a trend.  However, I also am alarmed by the rapid change that I am seeing.  You cannot keep track of the advances of the year and not see an overall change.

Rose Canes and woods - May 12, 2014

    I am also impressed by the resiliency of nature to right itself.  Eventually the plants do bloom, leaves do come out and grow.  On years that the winters are especially cold and long, I have noticed that growth moves quickly to catch up.  Leaves that emerge early in mild springs seem to mature much more slowly than leaves that emerge later in the year due to a cold spring.  They seem to reach maturity at roughly the same time.  I have also noticed through the years that on years when spring came early, blooming was spread out over a longer period of time with less actually blooms at any particular point in time.  On cold years, blooming appears to be later but with more things blooming at one time.  Somehow, the passage of spring manages to even itself out.
     Let us all hope that nature can do what we as people cannot seem to be able to do.  We must work to stop the actions that we as humans have done to initiate climate change.  Maybe, if we can do that, nature can take over to right the wrong that we humans have caused.

Poke Salad Annie Had Good Reason to be Mean

     I was out for a run one nice morning this past fall - going my usual slow pace.  Two much younger and fitter women passed me and kept on going.  They were carrying water bottles and they stopped ahead of me and nipped into some green, healthy vegetation; popping out minus the water bottles.  I know the greenway that we were running on well and the plants that grow along side of virtually every inch of it.  So, I called out to them to stop and wait for me.  When I got to them I explained to them that they needed to retrieve those bottles and then run straight to the nearest public bathroom, about a quarter of a mile and wash the bottles and themselves well with soap and water.

     Without realizing it, those two had walked into a vary healthy patch of pokeweed and used it as a place to store their water bottles.  That's right poke weed as in poke sallet, and famed in the song 'Poke Salad Annie'.  Why, you might ask, would that be a problem.  After all, don't people eat it?  While it is true that people do eat it, touching it can be a real problem.
     Pokeweed is a common native plant found throughout much of the United States and eastern Canada.  Only a handful of western states and western Canada do not support this plant.  It is a large perennial herb that can reach eight to twelve feet tall in a single growing season.  It is commonly found growing in open woods, roadsides, damp thickets and clearings.  The plant itself dies down to the ground with a hard freeze, but the root remains viable and regenerates in the spring.
     The plant can be easily identified by its large smooth-edged leaves that can reach up to a foot in length and its thick fleshy stems that range in color from green to red.  Flowers are found in long clusters.  They are small white five-sepal flowers without petals.  The fruit emerges as long clusters of green berries that eventually ripen to a dark purple.

     The entire plant (flowers, berries, roots, stems and leaves) is poisonous.  Among the chemicals that the plant contains are water-soluble triterpene saponins including phytolaccigenin.  The plant also contains phytolaccin and phytolaccatoxin.  These can be broken down by cooking - thus the making of poke sallet.  Cooking requires boiling and multiple water changes.  However, if not properly cooked, they can cause abdominal cramps, vomiting, diarrhea and in sever cases convulsions and death.  Toxin amounts are greater in the berries and roots.  Thorough cooking breaks down these toxins, and that along with the plant's ready availability explain why it was a favorite food source among especially the poor in the eastern part of the country. 

     Most country people know that the plant can be eaten if cooked, but few people know is that it is not safe to collect.  Besides the toxins listed, the plant also contains a type of protein lectin that can cause serious blood cell abnormalities and an alkaloid, phytolaccin.  Serious cases of poisoning can cause anemia, heart rate and respiration changes, convulsions and death from respiratory failure.  The juice of the plant can be absorbed through the skin making it a serious dermal toxin.  It is more dangerous if the handler has any cuts or breaks in their skin.  Because of this, it should never be handled with bare hands.  Ironically, the heart and respiratory symptoms from poisoning can cause brain damage and subsequent mood changes.  Thus, Poke Salad Annie might really have been a mean enough to make 'the alligators look tame' because of eating poke weed.

Get Your Tasks in the Right Order

I was recently approached by a couple of parents who are part of the group of officers of a 'parent owned' sports club. This club has been offering programs to area kids and adults for decades. They had been renting facility space for their club and had what seemed like an iron-clad lease. Recently, they were informed that they would no longer be allowed to use that space and were actually given a very short period of time to leave and to find a new 'home'. They found a property with some infrastructure already in place. This site would need additional work to bring it up to a point where it will provide for their needs.

What they did not really know is that it also would need work to bring it up to code. It seemed to be a logical approach to the problem at hand. They needed a new space and no longer wanted to be in the situation of being at the mercy of some other entity who could simply throw them out with very little lead time. Their next step most likely also seemed logical to them but might have created huge problems for them in their future endeavors. They interviewed and then hired a contractor, reasoning that the work that needed to be done, including the addition of a structural roof over a part of the facility, was the sole realm of a contractor. The contractor in-turn told them that the structural part needed to be designed by an architect and recommended one. So, they then hired the contractor-recommended architect.

This may not seem to be a poor choice in approach to the uninitiated. However, anyone who has dealt with projects within a city or county jurisdiction could probably tell you that this is really not a good way to go if you plan to have a successful project. First of all, you have no way to compare costs and no idea going into the project what you will ultimately be required to spend in order to obtain your final needs. I met with them and tried to let them know this, but ultimately this was most probably too late to help them. They had signed contracts with two service providers - the contractor and the architect - which they did in hast because they feared being without facilities and the damage that that situation might cause to their club.

A better way to approach this kind of problem is to first realize that projects involving land and structures cannot be expected to be completed quickly. These parents should have found temporary rental space to buy them time. The first step that I would have recommend they take is to hire a landscape architect or civil engineer to provide them with a due diligence study. This would give them some idea of potential pitfalls, legal and code requirements, time to completion and costs. I have often been able to determine, after doing a due diligence, that a site is not fit for the proposed use or that a critical utility such as electricity, water or sanitary sewer is not available and extending them is more expensive than the use can sustain. Sometimes the steps required to complete a project, such as re-zoning or a petitioned change in the land use plan, are just too time consuming and the project would take longer than the client can feasibly wait. It is better to find that out before the project is initiated or the property is actually purchased.

After the due diligence, the client can make an informed decision as to whether to procede with the project on that site or to walk away. If they choose to procede, the next step is to build the design team. You can do this by hiring one of the team and letting them put together the rest or by hiring the individuals separately. This team will most likely have a surveyor (to provide the boundary, topography and tree survey), a landscape architect (to provide the site layout and design and to provide site plan submissions), a civil engineer (to work with the utilities, stormwater and other aspects of the site development) and an architect (to provide the design of the structure). The architect will often then add a structural engineer and a mechanical engineer to their individual team.

Once a team is organized, the client will need to meet with them and they will need to produce a set of plans. These plans will have to be submitted to the local planning department for site plan review. This review will cover the site design and layout, proposed grading of the site, planting, tree protection, erosion control and stormwater design. It will also have elevations and proposed floor plans for whatever structures that might be proposed. Once site plans have been reviewed and approved, construction plans will need to be produced. These will also be reviewed and approved. These will provide the information that a contractor will need in order to build the site and the structures, including the architectural plans. With the approved construction plans, the client can then go to a number of contractors and have them bid on the the construction. By doing this, they get an opportunity to compare quotes and an opportunity to keep the cost of the project within a budget. They can also then have the opportunity to filter out contractors who simply cannot meet their time budget.

Obviously, my parent group will not have that opportunity. They are now at the mercy of the contractor who is free to continue to pile on costs. It is vitally important to a project to get the tasks required and the people who will perform them put together in the correct order. Otherwise, you risk a project that is either never completed or is completed over budget and hugely late.

Are You Effected by a Land Development Plan?

     Is your land a part of a land development plan?  If it is, do you know what the projected use of your land might be for the current and near future?  What about for the more distant future like ten or even twenty years?  If your answer to any of these questions is that you do not know, it might be in your best interest to find out.  City and County planning jurisdictions often develop long range plans for the development of the property within their actual limits and often within their extraterritorial jurisdiction, land beyond their boundaries for which they have development control.  Their long range plans for your land and the the properties surrounding your land could greatly effect your ability to use your land now and in the future.
     I recently attended a pre-submittal meeting concerning a piece of land.  The owner was hoping to sell this property and the potential buyer was hoping to develop it for high -density residential housing.  The property was in a seemingly agricultural area but backed up to a new residential development.  There was another new development just down the street.  Unfortunately for my client, this piece of land was in a low density residential area on the land use plan.  The Town agreed that the area was most likely to become high density residential and even commercial in the future, but that is not the case now.  To develop this property for high density residential as my client wanted, the land use plan for the Town would have to be changed to reflect high density residential.  The property would then need to be re-zoned to high density residential and then a site plan provided, reviewed and approved.
     To develop this property as low density residential would cost my client more than leaving it vacant because he would have to provide water, sewer and roads within the site.  To apply for the change in the land development plan would also be costly and would take a minimum of half a year to accomplish.  It would also mean that he would be taking the risk that the Town's decision might be to not allow the requested change.  In the end, my client chose to walk away from the property and the owner placed it back on the market.
     Land development plans can be a very powerful tool for a municipality to use to control and direct growth.  Obviously, uncontrolled growth does not really benefit anyone.  It  can cause real problems for innocent property owners who simply want to use their land the way that they were permitted to utilize it when they first purchased it.  Consider for instance a property owner who bought land in the country and built a home expecting to be able to live out their life in a rural country setting.  Without a land development plan and zoning regulations, this property owner could very easily find themselves living on their land surrounded by high density housing, like apartments, and commercial development, like a shopping center.  This could seriously effect their quality of life and their property value.  They might find that they cannot even sell their land and are stuck with having to remain in a now undesirable spot because of finances that were totally controlled by someone else.
     With a land development plan in place, existing property owners are at least given a chance to speak out when a change in the plan is requested.  Without one, they basically have no rights or voice in how surrounding properties are utilized.  It is important to know if there is a plan in place that effects your land.  This might determine how you develop that land, but it might also greatly protect it from surrounding development.
    

Fireworks in the Tree Tops

     I love to watch fireworks on the Fourth of July. It is the epitome of summer to me to walk out on a hot July evening among throngs of people, find a place in the grass near the lake where the Town shoots off the fireworks and then wait and watch. You get to spend a pleasant evening among friends and to enjoy a lovely show.   The walk home on a greenway through the woods with flashlights to light the way is pretty special too.


Lovely bursts of 'fireworks' crown a sourwood tree on the edge of the woods.



     One tree that always reminds me of the Fourth fireworks is the Sourwood. First of all, it tends to be in bloom around this time of year - beginning in mid June and often lasting until the end of July. Plus, to me the flowers themselves look like fireworks. The trees have long white strings of bell-shaped flowers coming out in a grouping like fingers on your hand. Each clump of flower strings resemble the pretty white clusters of shooting stars that we see on the night of the Fourth. With time they gradually turn from a snow white to a gray as the flowers complete their blooming and the seed is formed, but the firework groupings remain on the tree well into fall.
     The tree itself is a lovely small tree that is native to much of the Eastern and Southeastern United States. It is named Sourwood because of the oxalic acid that is formed in its leaves. This causes the leaves to have a bitter taste. The leaves may be sour tasting, but they are a favorite of a number of the moth species normally known as orange fall webworms. These moths will often seek out a sourwood to lay their eggs and the tents can begin appearing with tiny worms as early as mid summer.
     The flowers have a lovely scent and are attractive to bees. In a good year with plenty of rain and therefore plenty of flowering, bees seek out the trees. Sourwood honey is considered to be one of the best honeys in the world and is much prized. It is a very light colored honey with a heady scent. In addition, the juice from the flowers can be used to make jelly.



August leaves with seed pods still in place

     Sourwood likes full sun to partial shade and in the wild is usually found either as an understory tree in open hardwood stands or as an edge tree - such as the edge of a woodland, along a road or near a stream in a bottomland.  It is the edge location that is usually the most noteworthy.  The tree becomes a mass of brilliant red in the fall but will often begin turning color as early as August and will retain its red leaves for several months.  Along bottomland areas, the tree is always found above the high water level and is therefore a great natural indicator of potential flood levels and also of soils that are well drained.  Sourwood will not tolerate saturated soils.
     The tree reaches fifty feet in height and twenty feet in crown diameter in good conditions.  When found in the open, it has a pyramidal shape, but in a wooded setting, the shape tends to be more open and irrigular.  Often the trunk is crocked and leaning and the foliage is fairly dense on the main crown of the tree.
     Sourwood makes a wonderful specimen tree, especially when it is placed on the edge of a grouping of trees.  It does not tolerate a great deal of foot traffic and is not a 'lawn tree', but it does provide a good deal of interest and color when used on the edge of a bedded and thus protected area.  In these areas, the tree will be hardier if not fertilized with a chemical fertilizer.  Use organic materials such as compost instead.  It is a somewhat more temperamental tree to transplant and therefore is not always easy to find in a nursery, but it is well worth the search.  The other option is to protect what might come up at the edge of any wooded stands that you have.  You might be pleasantly surprised to find a sourwood growing amid the other edge trees.
     Look to sourwood to help set the mood for summer and the Fourth of July with its lovely flowers, and then look for the added bonus of long and brilliant late summer and fall color.  In the winter, enjoy its interesting and twisted shape and gray bark, and then in the spring watch for the red tinted leaves to come out.  It is a lovely understory and edge tree for all seasons of the year.

Passion Flower - A Great Vine and Groundcover

     Mid summer is a wonderful time to enjoy picnics and fireworks as well as to enjoy the 'fireworks' of flowers both in your yard and in the wild.  One lovely native flower that celebrates the season is the Passion flower, Passiflora incarnata.  Also known as the Maypop, the Passion flower is a perennial vine with herbaceous shoots that grow out from a lengthy woody stem.

     This vine can cover a sizable area over time for an interesting ground cover.  When it reaches something it can climb, it will use axillary tendrils, a modified stem that grows out and coils around objects to allow the vine to climb and not fall.  As a ground cover, it reaches a couple of feet in height and over time will cover an area of about ten feet in diameter.  As a vine, it can climb to a height of as much as twenty five feet.  Leaves have three lobes and are a lovely shade of dark but bright green.  They are an average of three to six inches across and provide for a lovely texture addition to your garden.
     The plant is herbaceous but perennial.  Thus it will disappear in the winter, but return and increase, beginning to send out new shoots, in the early spring.  By mid June, it will be covered with exotic flowers that appear to be a fringe of purple hair surrounding and under a very unusual and somewhat raised combination of pistil and stamens.  Under this fringe of hair are ten purple to light pink 'petals' that are actually sepals.  Flowers close overnight and open by early afternoon.  This flower is the reason for the name.  The pistil and stamens together are said to represent the crucifixion of Christ otherwise known as the Passion.  The ten
sepals are said to represent the ten disciples, excluding Peter and Judas.  The five stamens represent the five wounds placed into Christ's body, and the knob shaped stigmas are said to resemble the nails.  The fringe of 'hair' is seen as the crown of thorns.

     Flowers produce a three to five inch egg shaped, green fruit.  Over time this will become more yellow and the outer skin will become dry and paper-like.  Inside are groupings of seeds surrounded by globs of sweet, sticky flesh.  These gooey morsels are edible and were used by native Americans for food.  They also used the flowers, leaves and stems as infusions and teas; they found them useful for their medicinal properties.  Passion flower is believed to provide relief from anxiety and sleep disorders, especially when combined with valerian and lemon balm.  The name Maypop comes from the popping sound that the fruit make when it is ripe and squeezed in order to open it.
     The Passion flower is native to most of the southeastern United States - ranging from Pennsylvania to Florida.  In the wild, it can be found in meadows and pastures and along the edges of woodlands and streams.  The plant prefers sun to partial shade and will tolerate almost any kind of soil from loams to sands and from moist to dry.  It will not tolerate saline conditions though.  The fruit is highly favored by a variety of birds and the plant attracts a number of butterfly species.
     If Passion flower should happen to favor you with its presence, you might consider finding a home for it.  I like to see it mixed with other native vines to create areas of bedded ground cover in place of massive areas of grass.  A good companion is the Virginia creeper.  No matter how you proposed to use it, Passion flower can be a welcome addition to your site.

'Leaves of Five, Let it Thrive'

   'Leaves of three' and creeping on the ground or up a tree means poison ivy,  But what does 'leaves of five' mean?  It means that you have a solution to a nasty, bare, shaded and or hilly area on your property.  It could also mean that you have a solution to a hot wall or an unattractive fence issue.  Just what is 'leaves of five'?  It is Virginia Creeper.
     Virginia creeper, as the name implies, is a vine.  It is also a native to much of the eastern United States.  This perennial, woody vine will creep along the ground filling in an area and acting as a ground cover, or it will climb up an over things like fences and stumps along its path.  Either way, it is a stunning plant and deserves to be considered for use on your site.
     The plant has leaves that are composed of five leaflets.  These leaflets range in size from two to six inches and are toothed.  As a result they resemble the leaflets of poison ivy with the exception of their numbers.  Because people fail to recognize this difference or simply do not look closely to the plant, they often remove or kill Virginia creeper thinking that they are ridding themselves of poison ivy.  Often both plants can be found growing wild within close proximity as well which further leads to the confusion.  Both are rather attractive vines, but one has a rather nasty after-burn.
     The vine has new shoots and leaves that begin with a red to burgundy tint and gradually transform into their bright green summer foliage.  In the fall the leaves again turn red to burgundy just prior to leaf drop.  They produce a fairly inconspicuous green flower in the summer from June through August which ripens into a blue berry in the fall.  This is a favorite for a number of songbirds including bluebirds, cardinals, chickadees, woodpeckers and turkey.  They are also sought out as food by mice, squirrel, chipmunk and even deer.  Deer will also munch on the stems and leaves.

     Virginia creeper makes an excellent ground cover and will cover an open area of ground.  The plant is native to new and old growth forest and especially forest margins, stream banks and fence rows.  It performs well on slopes and provides excellent cover to act as erosion control.  The vine prefers partial shade to full sun and acidic soil.  This is perfect in our area of North Carolina where the soil is made acidic through the organic layers that are composed primarily of oak leaves and pine needles.  Although growth is slowed, Virginia creeper will also grow in sandy soil and even in areas of higher salt content.
     To establish Virginia creeper on your site, you can either obtain plants or you can seed them if a larger coverage area is desired.  Plants are available at many commercial nurseries who also can provide cultivars that have been bred for specific characteristics such as brighter fall color or smaller leaves.  Seeds can be sown in the fall or in the early spring.  They should have three eights inch cover of soil or mulch and should be planted at a rate of ten seed per square foot.
     As no plant is absolutely without flaws, Virginia creeper has a couple of things that need to be remembered when being used on a site.  First, the vine can get out of hand and will need to be cut back on occasion.  It has been known to completely cover and kill trees by preventing them from getting enough light to their leaves.  It can also cover structures.  This can be prevented by an annual trimming back to keep it in check.  Also, be aware that although the berries are loved by wildlife, they are poisonous to humans and that excessive contact to the sap can also cause an allergic reaction in some people. 

     Use the Virginia creeper wisely, and it will reward you with great cover and beautiful fall color.

Leaves of Three, Let It Be!

     Leaves of three, let it be!  Hairy vine, no friend of mine!  These are a couple of popular sayings I'm sure we all learned as kids, and that we all have in turn taught our own kids.  People grow up fearing and hating the fairly common native vine.  It is the subject of scorn, weeding and herbicide.  Yes, I am talking about poison ivy.  That unwanted scourge of a plant that can be a vine but can also become a shrub.  I have been on job sites that had poison ivy that was chest height and so thick that you could barely pass through it.  I have also see poison ivy vines that were so thick that I jokingly suggested that we count them for tree credit.  I would reason with the planning people that they had a diameter breast height that met their criteria and therefore should be counted (I might point out that these people are often not amused by this kind of a suggestion).

Early spring foliage

    Just what is it about poison ivy that is so awful?  It makes a great ground cover and often is one of the first plants to colonize a disturbed site.  It grows well in full sun but also can take a good deal of shade.  The leaves are actually quite pretty.  They are compound leaves with three leaflets per leaf.  In the early spring, they come out with a bronze color and they again turn red in the fall.  Plus the leaves have a nice shiny appearance.  They have pretty little white flowers and produce pretty little white berries that are highly favored by many kinds of birds.
     The real problem with poison ivy is a chemical called urushiol.  This is a clear oil produced by the plant.  It is most prevalent when the plant is broken or damaged, but is also present on the surface of the leaves and even the bare stems of the plant in winter.  This oil binds to the skin and to other items that come in contact with the plant.  For example, you could be careful to avoid the plant and then find yourself coming into contact with the oil because your dog ran through some and you reached down to pet him afterward.  You could have a towel or a piece of clothing brush through it and then become exposed when you accidentally touched that same piece of cloth.  You could even become exposed by breathing it in because someone placed it into a brush pile and burned the pile.
     Seventy five to eighty percent of the population have an allergic reaction to the substance and if you are one of those people, you are likely to fine that subsequent exposures cause more intense reactions.  So what do you do if you find it on your property?  First of all, don't panic.
     Poison ivy responds well to broadleaf herbicide treatments with chemicals like 2,4-D and Round-up.  It also responds well to being cut.  I usually suggest to people that they keep a separate set of shears to use for poison ivy cutting, but if you choose not to do that you are not sunk.  Simply make sure to clean your shears thoroughly with a detergent after each use.  As for the person doing the cutting; wear a watch.  Make sure that you wash within 45 minutes to an hour after an exposure and that you use a good oil-cutting detergent and scrub thoroughly.  Dishwashing detergent works well for this use.  The rash that you get a day or two after an exposure will let you know that you waited too long to wash or that you missed some of the exposure spots.  By the way, once you have washed the oil off, you cannot spread the problem even if the blisters that come up break.  That is a myth brought on by the fact that different quantities of exposure become a rash at different times.  Thus you might have become exposed all in one day but the rash might take several days to show up.
     Poison ivy is just a plant.  It is not something to be feared if you know how to handle it.  Wash in time and avoid the rash!

Consider the Angle of Repose

     So often people feel the need to fight the grades that are natural to their site.  They think that they should have a large flat area where the natural grade of the site is sloping, or they want a slope to feature some aspect of what they intend to plant or showcase.  They want to put natural streams into culverts, or they want to create a stream where one does not exist.
     Obviously, these changes can be made and are made on a regular basis.  Sometimes the solution to a desired flat area is to create a steep slope above and below the flat area.  Sometimes the solution is to construct a retaining wall or two.  Sometimes the solution is to remove the top of a hill and use that soil to fill a hollow.
     I have frequently seen the constructed solution  take the form of reshaping the land to create steep slopes on one or more sides of a site.  This can be a very effective way to create privacy, by creating berms, or to create a flat central lawn.  All to often I have seen this done, though, without the aid of a trained designer.  In fact, many 'garden centers' and 'landscapers' offer grading services.  Frequently these outlets have people who might know how to operate a backhoe or bulldozer, but do not have any design knowledge or training.  Although some equipment operators have an inherent sense of how to form the soil, many do not.  As a result, I have seen a good deal of disastrous consequences.

     So just what can happen if a mistake is made?  To the equipment operator, it can mean his life!  I have seen equipment flip and roll trapping the operator in the wreckage.  More often, though, the disaster occurs after the grader is done and has moved on.  The berm or grade change is completed and maybe even seeded and then a storm rolls in.  Suddenly the soil that was barely staying in place has the added pressure of saturation and begins a downhill tumble.

Don't let this happen to you!

     Designing the grading of a site requires that the designer know the soil type, the rainfall for the area and the subsequent angle of repose.  Without this information, slope failure is a distinct probability.  The soil type determines the angle of repose which is the key to most failures.
     All soils are made up of small particles of minerals - the result of the breaking down of  rock that formed the site millions of years ago - and organic matter - the result of the breaking down of plants in very recent times.  Soils are generally classified as sand, silt and clay (with a fourth classification of gravel that is not considered to be soil) based on the size of the particles that make up the soil.  Sand is the largest of the particles and clay is the smallest.  When these soils are built up to create a steep slope, they will naturally only stay at the steepness defined by their specific angle of repose.  This angle is directed by the individual particle density, surface area of the particles, their shape and the coefficient of friction as they relate to the force of gravity that acts on them.  Attempts to form a slope steeper than the angle of repose of the specific soil of a site will result in that soil reverting back to its natural angle.  That angle becomes flatter when you add water to the mix because water reduces the coefficient of friction allowing the particles to slide past each other.  For example, a dry sand has an angle of repose of 35 degrees, but a wet sand has an angle of repose of 25 degrees.  That is why the contractor can walk away from a completed site and the disaster of slope failure will not occur until it rains.
     Make sure you know who is designing your grades and how much training they have had.  It is also helpful to get a soil analysis if a great deal of grading is being proposed.  Clients that refuse to pay the 'extra' for a soil analysis often take the burden of failure on themselves and find that the 'extra' paid for that analysis might have been a wise investment.  Don't let a lack of knowledge about your site and your soil cause you to be the next person facing disaster.
    

Creativity Challenge - the Sequel

     Last week I challenged you to be creative and think beyond the easy and simple.  I showed you an example of my work in which I took a site that had a simple but less than desirable solution and re-designed it to have a more satisfying solution.  The end result was a completed project that has been extremely  successful as a built development.
     What about your individual site?  Can you make use of features on your site to enhance it?  Take a good look at your site.  Is there something unique about it that you have maybe overlooked?  You might have even seen it as a problem and missed it as a possibility.
     I had a client who called me out to look at their site because it had a creek in the back yard.  "What do I do with this?" she asked.  "It's so ugly and it takes up so much of the back yard."  The back yard was indeed ugly, but it was not ugly because it had a creek.  What made the space ugly was the fact that someone had cleared to the edge of the creek and was trying to grow and mow grass in an area that was clearly wet a good portion of the time.  The grass was growing, but was thin and not holding the banks in place.  Undermining had occurred in a number of places and left large holes in the lawn as well.  I asked her if there was some particular reason why they were trying to have a lawn in this area.  Did they have children who liked to play ball there, or did they need to have the space for lawn parties.  As it turned out, they were growing grass there because that is what they thought was the thing to do.  All of their neighbors had large grass lawns.  With a bit of imagination and some work, they transformed this area into a paradise with small, flowering trees, sweeps of colorful plantings and areas of ground covers.  They no longer had to mow; although they did have to do some weeding and they had an amenity rather than an eyesore.
     I had another client who wanted to remove a good number of the trees on his site because he felt that the house was too dark.  His wife also wanted more light in the house but did not want to lose the trees.  The trees were an obvious advantage on the site and their removal would have seriously adversely affected the site.  They were amazed when I suggested doing some strategic limbing of the trees and even more amazed at the airiness that they obtained after the job was complete.

   Most recently, I have watched as a neighbor struggled with a large and quite dead cherry tree.  They cut off the limbs and worked their way down to the trunk eventually stopping at about three feet from the ground.  At this point they began to have trouble cutting it further to the ground so they left the tall stump.  Recently, they came up with the perfect solution.  They chiseled a hole near a crotch in the stump, filled it with soil and planted it.  Now a gladiola is blooming there.  Problem solved!  A stump became a very unique planter.
     Don't be afraid to be creative.  We all have creativity as a part of our makeup.  Let your imagination rule for awhile and challenge the conventions of the people around you.  So what if all of your neighbors have a grass lawn and a row of Japanese holly neatly hedged across the front of their houses.  If you don't find that to be pleasing or if it does not work with what you have on your site than feel free to do something different.  The people around you might not understand at first and they might criticize, but I would be willing to bet that eventually they will come to value your creativity and maybe even follow your lead.

Take the Challenge to be Creative

     My son completed and turned in his final project in his cabinet making class yesterday.  The project entailed clearly stating his intention, designing the intended project and then executing the design.  His intention was to make a chess board, reasonable considering that he is the president of his high school's chess club.  Furthermore, this chess board was to be made entirely out of wood from the scrap pile.  In other words, he intended to use what he had at hand rather than bring in new material.  This made the project a good deal more complicated, and the final product a good deal more interesting.
     I have clients who choose to take this route on a regular or on an occasional basis.  They choose to rehab existing structures or use sites that have had previous uses other than vacant ground.  This always makes the project a good deal more complicated.  I have in the past had to deal with sites that could not meet setback, buffer or easement requirements because existing buildings were placed such that they were in these parts of the site - sometimes because the site had been subdivided and sometimes because the zoning had simply changed.  This often leads me to have to file re-zoning requests, special use permit applications or requests for variance.  All of these are legal hoops that I had to jump through, but are not really physically hindering.
     I have also had sites in the past that had monitoring wells (wells placed on the site to monitor soil and/or ground water contaminants) and buried extras (one urban site had a number of 1950's cars buried under it and one had a deposit of medical waste).  I have even had a site where past foundations were discovered under the current foundations that were being removed to make way for the new use.  These very physical issues can create a good deal of extra work as my client, sometimes the contractor and I work to figure out how to deal with them.
     At the design level, physical aspects of the site should most definitely help to define the design of the site.  It is very easy to design the location of a building, associated parking, vehicle and pedestrian access and any additional amenities on a flat site with nothing larger than grass growing on it.  The designer is basically then working with a blank piece of paper, a clean slate.  It is much more challenging if the site has a major grade change or a rock outcrop, or a water feature like a stream or a pond, or a vegetative feature like a champion tree or an area of woods.  To obtain the owner's desired use out of these sites, the designer is challenged to be considerably more creative.  The end result, though, can also be considerably more interesting and desirable.

The entire site was utilized and a pond for fishing and swimming was added as an amenity!

     I was brought in on the design of a site, for example, in which the initial preliminary design showed a single double loaded parking lot (parking spaces on either side of a single 24' wide aisle) placed in a straight line and a row of townhomes placed along the length of either side.  The whole thing was to be raised up with fill soil to meet the requirement of placing these units above the 100-year flood line which added to the general ugliness of the design.  This design was boring, but it did meet the client goal of X number of units on the site and the local planning requirement of X number of parking spaces per unit.  I was privileged to have been allowed to re-design the site, with of course the same parameters, and to complete the design and construction drawings.  My design included a pond in the center of the site that allowed me to obtain the fill needed to raise the buildings but also accessed the clean water table near the surface of the site.  Encircling the pond were the townhomes and encircling them the drive and parking.  Thus each townhome had a public entrance to the loop drive and parking and a private interior entrance to the walks encircling the pond.  Ironically, my design actually cost less to construct than the estimate for the initial design and produced a pleasant place to live.  Residents got an amenity that provided them with swimming, fishing and walking recreation as well as aesthetics. It did, however, take a good deal more design time and creativity.
     Don't take the easy way out when designing your site.  Take the challenge.  You might really like the results.  Work with what you have on the site rather than ignoring it.

Don't Dominate Your Site!

     My ex-husband died last night and it made me think about a lot of things.  Not all of our marriage was bad; in fact, some of it was quite good.  The really bad parts had to do with him trying to control and manipulate those around him, especially as he descended further into his dependency problems.  Your site, whether it be many acres or less than one, is very much like that too.  Attempt to manipulate and control it, and you will be in a constant battle over dominance.  Let it have its own nature and work within those directions and you will live in harmony with your site.
     I have seen people, especially with single family residences, work constantly to have their property look 'nice' in their definition of a pretty site.  They mow meticulously, edge along their curb, hedge and clip every shrub to within an inch of the 'perfect' shape (although I have yet to understand the reasoning behind creating great boxes, funny inverted cones or giant bowling balls out of their shrubs) and use ridiculous amounts of chemicals - both fertilizers and pesticides - in an all-out and on-going assault on their land.  The end result is indeed something very neat and tidy.  It is also something very unnatural and uninviting, and it is a harsh place for the owner who has to maintain it, anyone planning to spend any time there and for the environment in general.
     Does that  grass really look better with a perpetually severe low cut and a permanently blunt edge just back of the curb?  Have they really even looked at it, or is this simply ingrained into their psyche as the 'way to do things.  Does that roll of bowling balls culminating with an inverted ice cream cone really look better than a shrub that is allowed to maintain its shape?  Does an absolute monoculture really look better than something with multiple plant species?  These are questions that only you can answer.  Perhaps to you they really do look better.

The natural shape of the plants comes from and annual pruning.

     I would like to expand your horizons a bit though and ask you to look beyond this contrived and beaten site.  Every plant has its inherent mature size and shape.  Each has their own particular color, fragrance (even if it is simply the smell of the leaves), and blooming.  When thinking about your planting, why not consider the mature size and shape of each plant (shrub, tree and also herbaceous plant) that you intend to use.  If you want a conical shape, why not plant a shrub that will naturally grow that way and will reach a height that is close to the height that you need for that spot.  A choice like this does not mean no pruning; it simply means no hedging and minimal (most likely annual) pruning.  The same thing can be said for color.  If you want dark green, why not plant something that is naturally dark green rather than adding tons of fertilizer to your site to force your plant into that color.

     Do you want and need a lawn?  If so, does it really need to be a monoculture of a single grass?  What is  that lawn providing for you?  If your answer is a football field or a golf course, than that monoculture makes sense.  If you are using that lawn for occasionally walking across the grass and as a backdrop, then why not plant a mixture of grasses or better still a mixture of grasses and legumes for your lawn.  They will still function and be green when mowed plus they will not need to be mowed as meticulously or fertilized as often if ever.  Finally, have you ever noticed how pretty plants can be when they are allowed to tumble over hard features.  Grass and legumes can be just as pretty when allowed to tumble over a curb.  Edging is not a necessity; it is a style choice.
     Stop fight with your site and the plants that you use in it.  You do not need to dominate.  Try working within their inherent nature and you might find that you like the aesthetics you obtain.  You might also find that you like the reduction in work and stress.