Hay Bales

Arata's Farm designs a new straw labyrinth every year from tens of thousands of hay bales, and for a small fee, passersby can get lost in an absolutely insane maze. The scale is tremendous. I've been blabbing a lot about hay bales recently-as informal parterres, garden seating, mulch, oh, and horse food (I guess) they get a big thumbs up.

Graffiti Cactus

A cactus in Hawaii which had been tagged. The plant scars white-ish after the initial wound, and makes for a rather nice writing template. It makes both sad and happy. Not sure how I feel about it at the end of the day.

The Albany Bulb

The Albany Bulb is a former landfill and a park.  It is near my house, and over the past several years I have gone there many times, largely because it is a compelling, gorgeous, and troublesome landscape, and a charming place for a walk with a dog or a friend.

One of the more interesting conundrums that landscape architecture is forced to reckon with is the simple fact that quite often, non-designed landscapes are often more beautiful and functional their constructed brethren.  The Albany Bulb is a stalwart example of this phenomenon.  It functions as a park, a landfill, a home for the homeless, a wetland, and as a place where plants, both native and non, spar and thrive happily.

The Bulb is as close to an anarchist landscape as I have every come.  It is self-policed, non-maintained, self-perpetuating, and visually and ecologically post-apocalyptic.  It is a hyphen.

It is a landscape that tests what you expect of a park and questions the essence of both beauty and recreation. By bringing together elements that are normally not, it challenges you, psychologically, but also physically, because there are about a million ways you could injure yourself here.

When the tide is low enough, you can just barely navigate across a mostly submerged jetty of rocks.  HOW FUN!

Burner art, flowering meadows, rebar, riprap, the roar of the ocean, and a whipping coastal breeze.  Bring your bong.

PLANT BASTARD: Fallopia japonica

So here's another plant bastard. This one's a real fucker. Fallopia japonica, or Japanese knotweed, is native to Japan, China, and Korea. It is extremely invasive and has been found thriving throughout North America and Europe. It is currently found in 39 of the 50 states in the U.S.

Take a good look at this guy. This bastard is on the World Conservation Union's list of 100 worst invasive species. It looks somewhat like bamboo, but is not related. It is extremely resilient, tolerating temperatures as low as -31°F. Its roots can spread to a radius of approximately 25' around the center of the plant and extend 10 feet deep into the soil. Unless all roots are completely removed Fallopia will continue to resprout.

The real reason Japanese knotweed deserves the title 'PLANT BASTARD' is because it destroys the foundations of buildings. If one bit of the root of the Fallopia plant is left underneath a new development, it can slowly grow and eat through the concrete of the new buildings. A £2 million housing development in England was recently halted due to the discovery of Fallopia. They are currently uprooting the plant and hauling it off in sealed containers to ensure no new seeds are left on the site.

Japanese knotweed has spread widely throughout the United Kingdom, where over £150 million are spent annually to keep this weed under control. It is such a bastard that there are businesses that exist solely to eradicate its presence. Japanese Knotweed Control is a British company that uses herbicide stem injections (technology from an American company in Washington) to destroy the Fallopia that grows throughout several of the royal parks of London. The process takes nine months to take full effect, but it is extremely more cost-effective than excavation, which was the former solution to Japanese knotweed infestation.

Interestingly enough, Japanese knotweed is also edible. So if you happen to find some of it in your garden, carefully dig out every single root, taking delight while ripping it to shreds and then take some of the shoots and make cake, wine, sherbet or eat it boiled with dashi and sake! Relish in this bastard's demise.

AWESOME SHIT: plants on strings

I came across these photos of exquisite string gardens and immediately thought, "I want that." Very little information is known about the elusive 'fedor,' the person responsible for these little gems. He/she creates them in very limited quantities and markets them like a fashion collection, season by season. No information is provided on the website other than stock is due to be refreshed soon!

Turns out that fedor was inspired by kokedama, which is an ancient form of bonsai, sometimes called 'poor man's bonsai,' as it is fairly easy to create.

a typical kokedama

It involves rolling clay-heavy soil into balls, covering the soil in moss, and inserting a plant into the soil. The ball is usually bound with string to keep everything from crumbling to bits, with the string eventually disintegrating once the roots of the plant have taken over. Kokedama are typically set on display on plates, so that is what makes fedor's work so unique. fedor takes the awesomeness to a new level by hanging the plants in creative ways and making compositions with combinations of the different sizes and species. The sense of seasonality in all of fedor's work is impressive as well. Someone buy me one when they're back in stock? I love Lavandula. Maybe I'll start working on the next Hanging Gardens of Babylon, who wants to help me?

a few more photos of fedor's work:

and a few links for yall:

fedor's string gardens

sala-sala, an old blog devoted to different kokedama

a how-to guide for making your own kokedama

Red Rock Island.

Red Rock Island is an island in the San Francisco Bay which made me salivate and my palms sweaty every time I saw it driving over the Richmond Bridge.  One day fate intervened, and a good friend bought me a canoe. Canoes = Cowabunga.  If you ever get a canoe, I highly recommend not planning your paddles, not thinking things through, not having life jackets, and bringing only Kombucha.  All this adds greatly to the rush.

Anyways, one day my good friend Nathan and I made exhaustively unresearched plans to try and get to Red Rock Island.  Through internet searches we found that it is: 5.8 acres, the only privately owned island in the SF Bay, the guy who owns it is a "gem dealer in Thailand" (awesome job, I want it), and that there were once plans to build a casino on it.  

It would be a pretty sweet place for a casino.  Admit it, liar.

Land Ahoy!  When on a canoe and in the bay, you feel very, very small. Paddling under the bridge was terrifying and also very excellent.  Later, I found out that the island is surrounded by the deepest water in all of the bay.  Which was not an issue for Nathan and I, because we are very macho, so it was like totally not a big deal.  We didn't even bring it up or anything. Because we're men, and men don't express emotions like fear to each other, obviously.

After circumnavigating the island, my friend Nathan and I realized the only way in which to ascend the mighty peak was by trusting in a yellow rope that earlier, more experienced explorers than us had put in.  I don't want to make a big deal about it or anything, but I'm pretty sure it was Magellan.  Using the rope, we hoisted ourselves to the top.  

And at the top we discovered something marvelous- an earlier visitor, at some point in time, had put in a single row of an unidentifiable type of lily that encircled a dying Monterey Cypress, the most significant tree on the island.  Tasteful and well executed.  Land Art, I have since decided, only becomes more powerful when executed anonymously and in extremely inaccessible locations.  Doing something incredible and not telling anyone about it is fantastic. Just like this blog, wait what?

The Great Park.

The Great Park of Orange County, CA, is a massive undertaking by a team led by Landscape Architect Ken Smith. Though I have mixed feelings about much of the work of Mr. Smith, I think the master plan is super gnar and I genuinely appreciate his audaciousness. Last Thanksgiving my mother and I took a trip to see the "demonstration park," which is a kitschy but pleasant mini-park that Smith has constructed to whet the appetite of the public for now, as the park won't be completed for 193 more years. Landscape=Time. But the mini-park is totally radical! See below!

You can go on a free balloon ride and look out at the site! YAAAAY! Smith, in typically cheeky fashion, placed a giant North arrow path that only reads from above. Guffaw, chortle.

Due to the fact that the site is heavily paved now, there were several examples of how the landscape architects plan to reuse the concrete. When I see concrete being reused I blush and my knees shake. Here is a beautiful concrete rubble berm with grasses (Muhlenbergia rigens, I believe) on the opposite side. The execution/construction was flawless. It will be interesting to see how they age.

Here are some benches. Crack the ground plane and learn about the past. Love 'em!

And in the parking lot, as traffic guides/dividers, Smith placed many trees that will be used on the site, and kept them in their nursery containers. This will give the trees time to grow before they're installed, adapt to the local climate, etc. A nice, thoughtful touch.

And here's Patti, just messin' around.

PLANT BASTARD: Monotropa uniflora

What an odd little plant, eh?

Monotropa uniflora is a plant (not a fungus!) that does not contain chlorophyll. It is one of only 3,000 plant species that are non-photosynthetic. It is commonly known as Ghost Plant, Indian Pipe, or Corpse Plant.

It is found in the deep, dark parts of the United States east of the Great Plains. It doesn't need sunlight, so it hides out in the dense forest understory like a little creep. Oddly enough it is part of the family Ericaceae which is also responsible for blueberries (a personal hate).

So how does Monotropa get nutrients? It teams up with mycorrhizal fungi, which take carbon dioxide from a host tree and convert the CO₂ to sucrose. From there the fungus turns the sucrose into sugar alcohols called trehalose. Monotropa then tricks the fungus into perceiving they are in a mycorrhizal relationship together, and the fungus gives up the sugar alcohols to Monotropa and then receives nothing in return. Monotropa, what a bastard.

Indian Wool Blankets

Barry Friedman is an interesting man who left a Hollywood Comedy writing job to focus full time on his true passion: pre-1942 Wool Indian Blankets. The man wrote the book on these things (literally, he wrote a book, it's called Chasing Rainbows) and his website is like a cyber-version of the Dr. Bronner's label. I am definitely scheduling a stop at his shop on Soulquest 2010. I'm going to shake his hand and then ask him, very seriously, if I can live in his shop. I will promise to be very quiet and clean, as I would mostly just like to take naps on the blankets. http://www.barryfriedmanblankets.com/

Byxbee Park. Palo Alto, CA.

Byxbee Park is a washed out, fuzzy daydream. Poles, chevrons, paths, grass, hillocks, built on top of an old landfill. That's all. It is an incredible example of the power of restraint in landscape. It is so rare, living anywhere near a city/suburb, that we are presented with intentional wide open space. Such a landscape enables thought, meditation, reflection. Very few places, in my opinion, do this as well as Byxbee. What a shame they had to put it in Palo Alto.

Awesome Plants

Buying plants that make you laugh is never a bad idea

communicating on the seascape

alpha. bravo. charlie. delta. echo. foxtrot. golf. hotel. india. juliet. kilo. lima. mike. november. oscar. papa. quebec. romeo. sierra. tango. uniform. victor. whiskey. xray. yankee. zulu.

International maritime flags have fascinated me ever since Shout Out Louds used them on the cover for their second album – Our Ill Wills.

album cover

Each flag represents not only a letter of the alphabet and can be used to send messages letter by letter, but each flag also has a standard meaning. A personal favorite is the x flag which carries this message: "Stop carrying out your intentions and watch for my signals."

the x flag (xray)

The flags are not only functional but their use of bright colors as well as simple geometric shapes and patterns are quite appealing and have served as inspiration for much of today's fashion. I am quite fond of the n flag and the y flag.

n flag (november) and y flag (yankee)

There are other specific types of maritime flags including ensigns, jacks, rank flags, and pennants. A Gin Pennant is flown on board when the wardroom of a ship is offering drinks to officers from other ships. Selfish officers choose its location and position carefully as their aim is to be hospitable, but have as few ships see the flag as possible leaving more alcohol for their own consumption. Tricky junior officers in the Royal Australian Navy have been known to hoist the Gin Pennant on other ships in order to get their hands on a free cocktail. Cheeky bastards.

gin pennant.

Landscape DO: Trees in Mexico

The style of tree planting in Mexico is like nothing I have ever seen before.  Species of all varieties are thrown chaotically into the landscape and left to their own devices.  Issues one would normally consider when placing a tree (proximity to other trees, open canopy availability, etc.) are, as far as I can tell, not considered whatsoever.  And the final product is fantastic.  Total randomness creates a dazzling, visually complex landscape with rich textured balances of light and dark, greens and browns.  In addition, the density of the vegetation makes noises from traffic recede instantly, and as you enter the park the urban clamor dissipates magically.  Muy great!