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    Seeing the Future

    6/29/2016

    3 Comments

     
    Picture
    PictureCaptive audience: Jill gives esteemed guests a tour of Bedrock.
    GARDENERS ARE A SHARING LOT. Think seed swaps, Master Gardeners (who exist to volunteer their expertise and time), or the crazy-about-daylilies coworker who brings in potted divisions. Community garden members donate their extra produce, families volunteer for school gardens, and the creators of magnificent gardens open their spaces for charity tours--or in the case of Jill and Bob, simply to spread the love their gardens engender. In large part, gardeners are a passionate and committed group eager to share knowledge and resources.
    ​

    This notion was driven home this past weekend for Bedrock’s owners, who after years of being on the giving end, were the recipients of garden do-good-ism. On Saturday, six nationally-recognized horticulture professionals converged at Bedrock on Jill and Bob’s behalf. They included Lee Buttala, Emmy Award-winning TV producer (Martha Stewart Living and PBS’s Cultivating Life) and current Director of Communications and Marketing for the Berkshire Botanical Garden; Cultural Resources Program Director for Naumkeag in Stockbridge, MA, Cindy Brockway; Executive Director for Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens in Boothbay, Bill Cullina; Michael Dosmann, the Curator of Living Collections at Harvard’s Arnold Arboretum; Joann Vieira, Horticulture Director at Tower Hill Botanical Garden in Boylston, MA; and Jeff Lynch, Horticulture and Grounds Manager for Chanticleer Garden in Wayne, PA.
    ​

    Generosity, in the form of a grant from the The Gladys L. Smith Fund of the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation, made it possible to bring these folks together. They came to look and listen to Jill and Bob, to the Friends of Bedrock Gardens (FBG) board, and to community members. They offered their thoughts, expertise, and precise instructions on how to turn Bedrock into a public garden and cultural center for those interested in horticulture, sculpture, landscape design, and the arts.

    The owners were awed. “They shared their weekend at high garden time,” Jill says, appreciating that they left their respective busy gardens in order to see Bedrock at its most bold and beautiful. 

    Thankfully, the weather cooperated and the days went by seamlessly. Highlights included a tour by Jill, an al fresco dinner behind the barn around Bob’s handmade table, and highly positive comments about the gardens and art: “Everyone had helpful feedback from raising my mower height to ways to market the garden we never would have thought of,” says Jill.  “They talked about how important a sense of magic is in this over-processed world.”  

    There was even some horticultural repartee. “I stumped them on two plants,” smiles Jill. “The [southeast U.S.] native, Croomia pauciflora, in the Swaleway,” and the Asian member of the sunflower family, Atractylodes japonica. “They, in turn, pointed out plants I didn’t even know I had!” (or thought were something else), including a black ash (Fraxinus nigra) and a maleberry (Lyonia ligustrina).

    It started with Jill and Bob opening their home and hearts and sharing the bounty of their private acres with visitors for more than a decade now. It continues with the Friends of Bedrock Gardens, folks so touched by the peace, beauty, artistry--and yes, magic--of Bedrock, that they’ve joined Jill and Bob in wanting  to see it remain in perpetuity for others to experience. And it will take a community to bring it to fruition. Thanks to the generosity of spirit that gardeners share, they now have a road map. ~ Lisa Peters O'Brien
    3 Comments

    Bob the Builder

    6/21/2016

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    Picture
    Bob repairs Petit Pond with the help of his Kubota
    BEDROCK'S JILL NOONEY HAD A CHANCE to champion her favorite garden tools in this May post, so it is only fitting that her co-conspirator Bob has his say, too. Bob Munger is the behind-the-scenes guy, the inventor, creator and builder of the landscapes in which Jill plays. Transforming 30 acres of neglected farmland--poison ivy and scrub growth--into garden beds and GrassAcre, ponds and parterre, took more than all the manpower he could muster. It required Machines.
    ​

    First came the beloved “Zipper.” A 50th birthday present for Bob, the speedy little motorized utility cart “opened up the back 40,” says Jill. Suddenly, projects in the far reaches of their sprawling 30 acres seem much less daunting. The Zipper made it easy to transport equipment, tools, supplies, lunch--or to return to the house for the forgotten bug spray. “Every place in the garden is only as far as the Zipper,” quips Bob. By extension, then, every place in the Seacoast (New England?) must be as far as Bob's car, because its license plate reads, "Zipity." (Jill's is Do-Dah.)
    PictureZippity goes the privet hedge trimming
    After the Zipper came the backhoe tractor with an interchangeable forklift and bucket. Together, it and Bob have cleared fields, created water features, moved tree stumps, made pathways, carved out beds, built hillocks, and much more. “It hasn’t quite replaced the shovel, but it helps a lot,” says Bob. “It’s a much more powerful means to an end.” 

    Heavy equipment satisfies Bob’s inclination to transform ideas into actuality, and allows him to be involved from beginning to end. It extends to him a certain superhuman power, enabling him to leap tall buildings with a single bound:  “Sitting in a cab, the machine becomes an extension of yourself,” he muses.  “With the lift of a finger, you can reach out and pick up a rock. You have so much control.”

    Secondly, finicky creatures that they are, power tools repeatedly afford Bob the chance to take things apart and put them back together again. “Bob is the fixer,” says Jill. “He loves machines, even when they break.”

    PictureTractor envy got tree stumps to the Dark Woods
    Take, for example, the time Jill was mounting an exhibit called “Got You Stumped” for the Boston Flower Show. They borrowed a 40-year-old, 24-inch chainsaw from a neighbor to carve up tree stumps left on the sides of roads by utility crews. The revered chainsaw broke during their watch.

    “Bob dismantled it and found that a tiny part had snapped,” marvels Jill. “He just fabricated a replacement piece from a little scrap of metal and installed it.” Problem solved, neighbor happy. 

    Being Mr. Fix-It is doable with small machines, but as Bob was to find out, it's not so easy with the Big Boys. Fifteen years ago a contractor friend parked a huge old excavator on the property for the weekend and told Bob to go ahead and use it. “In a morning I’d made a road!,” says an incredulous Bob. “I was excavating stumps with the flick of a finger. Sitting up there in the cab, I felt like a giant spider.”

    The next time their friend left the excavator, Bob got into trouble. “I was way out in the middle of the woods,” he remembers. “It broke down, and it was very difficult for the truck carrying the repair equipment to reach it. I learned then not to borrow other people’s expensive equipment.”

    Does Bob the builder now stick to backhoes, Zippers and the like, whose parts you don't have to be Superman to fix? Why, yes he does. ~ Lisa O'Brien

    2 Comments

    Out of the Ordinary

    6/1/2016

    1 Comment

     
    PictureThe Wave with 'Redbor' and 'Winterbor' kale
    The tastes of Bedrock's owner Jill Nooney (a.k.a. "collector of plants"), range from the exotic (look for the Japanese emperor oak, Quercus dentata, that's near the Gothic Arbor) to the "garden variety." Take her use of vegetables and herbs, which are tucked liberally among her beds. But whereas parsley and beets are serviceable (and delicious) in my garden, at Bedrock, they turn into playful, graceful, or even exquisite color, texture, and form.

    "I'm always on the lookout for foliage that makes a statement, holds up for a long time, and has interesting texture," Jill explains. She regularly uses upright, vase-shaped swiss chard and bushy, wavy-leaved kales in her borders.  'Bright Lights' swiss chard, Beta vulgaris 'Bright Lights,' adds spear-shaped leaves and splashes of the deepest hues, while 'Redbor' and 'Winterbor' kales (Brassica oleracea), offer contrastable texture and muted colors.  Though not in the ground this year, another favorite is 'Bull's blood' beet, Beta vulgaris 'Bull's Blood', for its stunning burgundy foliage. These cold-hardy veggies stick around at least through fall: Beets and swiss chard will stand the early, light frosts and even a mild freeze, and kale more so, its flavor sweetening and color intensifying with each successive chill. 

    Picture
    The yellow flowers of over-wintered 'Winterbor' kale.

    ​When there's time, Jill cuts down these biennials during fall clean-up. When she doesn't get to it, the kale will volunteer clouds of delicate, yellow blooms the following spring, with both plants giving up seed for next year's crop soon thereafter. ​
    PictureFrilly but never frivolous: 'Bronze' fennel
    Herbs are especially handy for adding textural interest, and when allowed to flower, they attract any number of beneficial insects. Look for the lush ground cover complementing the stand of pineapple lily, Eucomis 'Sparkling Burgundy', by the back door of the house: It's Petroselinum crispum, or curly parsley. It, too, stays green all season and withstands the cold. In the Garrish Garden you'll find a healthy stand of 'Bronze' fennel, Foeniculum vulgare, mixed with purple coneflower, Echinacea purpurea. You can harvest and cook with the fennel leaves all summer, and again with the seed come fall. (Learn more about using fennel in the kitchen  here.) Parsley and fennel have the added bonus of being host plants to the Eastern Black Swallowtail butterfly, so be sure to plant enough to share.

    This year, Jill is experimenting with dill, Anethum graveolens, and anise,  Pimpinella anisum. Or at least that is what she'd planned some quiet evening this winter past. By the time the large packet of anise arrived in the mail, she says, she'd "long forgotten what brain storm she'd had for its use." Inspiration came the other day in Conetown, when she scattered its seed in a large circle in the dirt with an entryway at one end.  Will it please the inveterate tinkerer? "We'll see," says Jill. ~Lisa O'Brien

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