Magnolias

I’ve always loved magnolia blooms and have a wonderful memory of one. Some years back I was taking classes at a local community college. This was my first summer there and I lived about a ½ hours walk from the place. The long June evenings provided me daylight long after the class was over, so I could walk home. One evening I walked the warm deserted streets past a local house museum. This house had a magnolia tree in the yard and the branches bent low and close to the iron gate that separated the yard from the street. One beautiful magnolia was at about eye level. I could smell the clear lemony smell. What can I say? I plucked it and took it home with me, where it scented our house for three days and then collapsed into a pile of rubbery brown leaves.

Magnolias come in a wide number of varieties. Even though we mostly see white, there are some attractive pink and yellow ones. It is the official state flower of both Louisiana and Mississippi. Yet they grow nicely up north here and can even be grown from seed. Generally magnolias need lots of space and a bit of air around them, but can also do well in part shade. The area should be sheltered but not so sheltered that it gets colder than the surrounding area in winter. The soil should be slightly acidic. They don’t need to be pruned unless damaged by snow and ice. If this happens, prune away the damaged branches and that will allow the rest of the tree to recover.

Resources:

Magnificent Magnolias

How to grow magnolia trees

The Byrd

Recently I paid a visit to the Byrd theatre in Richmond, Virginia. I’m a movie buff so I have to see things like this and I was quite impressed with the Byrd. This theatre was named for William Byrd II, the founder of Richmond. It opened on December 24, 1928 and was intended for use both as a sound and silent theatre, with both types of equipment. Prices then were 25 cents for a matinee and 50 cents for evening, with children paying 10 cents. The first movie shown was a comedy called Waterfront. True to the intented dual sound/silent use for the Byrd, Waterfront was a silent film that was shown with sound added.

The Byrd seats 1,400 seats and has a Wurlitzer organ that rises out of the front of the stage. Originally meant for silent movies, the organ is now played every Saturday night before the evening show. The murals in the lobby depict scenes in Greek mythology and were hand painted in a studio in New York. A humongous chandelier, which hangs over the auditorium, was assembled as the building was constructed. This chandelier weighs two and a half tons. The predominant decor inside the building is very ornate, mainly featuring gold leaf and marble. The Byrd has never been remodeled, but there were a few repairs and adjustments from time to time. Now, it is run by a non-profit organization called The Byrd Theater Foundation. They survive as a second run movie house and it costs only $1.99 to get in, so this allows many people to experience this bit of movie history.

Resources:

Richmond Movie Palace-The Byrd Theater

Byrd Theater and Foundation

Sherwood Gardens

As long as I have lived in Baltimore, I had never been to Sherwood Gardens until recently. I was surprised to find that it is so close that I could walk to it. The area itself is really a large plot of open ground filled mostly with azaleas, trees of all types, and of course, the famous tulips. The look this year is overwhelmingly pink and white, but old newspaper and magazine articles from the Pratt library Maryland room tell of a much greater variety of colors in years past.

Mr. Sherwood, the originator of the garden, was actually quite welcoming to visitors considering that he began the gardens in the 1920s on his private property. He said that he wanted to plant a few plants to cover some bare spots and the garden spread out from there. Ultimately the garden became famous for the many tulips, azaleas and flowering trees. Planting the bulbs was a large undertaking. According to a Style magazine article, in 1937 Sherwood had 42,000 blooming tulips in his garden. Sherwood’s chief gardener, Clarence Hammond, would order the bulbs from Holland at the end of the summer and they were shipped over by boat. It took a month for Hammond and his crew to plant all of the bulbs. That was not the end of the work. Tulips can come back year after year, but they loose their strength and the blossoms become less showy. In spring, after the bulbs bloomed and the foliage died back, Hammond and his assistants would have to dig them up all over again. Now, Sherwood is a free, year round public park maintained by the Guilford Association. There were 80,000 tulips this year. Most of these were dug up and happily carried home during the annual tulip dig, which lets the public remove the spent bulbs for a very small fee.

Resources:

Guilford Association

Sherwood Gardens: cultivating a Baltimore tradition

Forsythia

Every spring I look forward to the forsythia blooming. Here, this blooms on a scruffy patch at the base of the Howard Street Bridge. Usually a homeless person lounges about in this area, but since this was a rare occasion when he wasn’t here so I whipped out my camera. I am partial to forsythia because it reminds me of my childhood. When we were kids we had some that were so big that we used to play house inside of them. There were several different bushes growing in a row and it seemed like there were several “rooms” inside them.

As you could guess by this forsythia bush’s location, forsythia are very easy to grow and require little maintenance or special conditions. They are tolerant of polluted areas. Ideally, they require full sun, well-drained soil. Technically, forsythia are deciduous shrubs and are a member of the olive family. The leaves drop off in late fall but do not turn any exciting colors. Forsythia is of Asian origin and was discovered by Robert Fortune in the 18th century. Forsythia was introduced to America at the turn of the 20th century. The shrub was named in honor of William Forsyth, who was a prominent gardener in England

Forsythia blooms in March and April with yellow blossoms early in the spring and the blossoms are always on the previous year’s growth. As evidenced by my childhood activities, it can grow large, often between 4 and 6 feet tall and with a spread from three to five feet wide. It also grows fast, from 1-2 feet per year. It leafs out nicely and is often used for privacy. Single forsythia look best wild but if they are in groups they should be trimmed. Many gardeners prefer the unruly look and hesitate to prune them. Forsythia can be grown from cuttings. Cut a 3-6 inch branch from an area of new growth and then place is a pot of moist soil, keeping it moist. It will slowly take root over a few weeks.

Resources

How to Grow and Care for Forsythia

Planting and caring for forsythia

About Forsythia

Sweater Trees

One Sunday recently I was reading The Washington Post and they had one of those “wacky things about Baltimore” articles. Well, the quirky sites were typical, such as some oft mentioned shopping and dining sites. But, I stopped dead when I saw a mention for something called “the sweater tree”. Even more amazing, it was only a few blocks from my home, in front of the LovelyYarns shop. She collected abandoned knitting projects from the people who frequent her shop and then stitched them around the trunk. Apparently they also knitted meter cozies but they were quickly removed.

Apparently this is a part of a trend called urban knitting, or even guerilla knitting. Most famous is the Knitta please project began in 2005 as some of the members agonized about what to do with their abandoned knitting projects. Somehow this led to them surreptitiously attaching knitting to mailboxes and street signs in the middle of the night.
They call it “graffiti”, only using knitting materials. Since then, knitters have attached their knitwear to any available public place. Largely this consists of trees and light poles, but like in the case of Finish and Swedish knitters, it can extend to moorings, handrails, and whatnot. Surprisingly, this trend is visible in urban cities all over the world, even if it is not as prevalent as other art forms. Some cities, such as Yellow Springs, Ohio, led an organized effort to beautify their communities with “tree cozies”.

I’ve heard rumors of another sweater tree on 31st between St. Paul and Charles, so I will investigate that soon.


Resources

"Urban Knitting: The World's Most Inoffensive Graffiti" by deputydog

"A Sweater for a Tree" (AP story)

knittaplease.com

Median Strips

Essentially, median strips exist to divide busy streets and slow down traffic. Years ago these were mostly found in wealthy areas and were as much for beautification as for automobile control. Bolton Hill, where this median strip is located on Mount Royal Avenue, was built mostly between 1850-1900 and was one of the city’s richer neighborhoods. Some streets in this area have medians between the street for residents that goes directly in front of their homes and a larger main street and these acts as a buffer for noise and other traffic issues. Mount Royal Avenue is a main street that leads from north to south and the JFX has a major exit just north of this median; so speedy cars are a problem. Before this was built, though, Bolton Hill did not have as many traffic problems as other neighborhoods because there was no direct route north as Druid Hill Park is in the way. Mount Royal also paralleled the Jones Falls valley, so if one wanted to go east in those days they had to drive until they found a bridge. Thus, this median’s main function in those days was probably beautification.

Now we are mostly familiar with medians in the middle of large highways that are nowhere near cities. In the early days of driving, highways with planted medians were called parkways and the plantings in the strips helped relieve driver’s eyes from the oncoming headlights of cars coming from the other direction. After World War II plantings were used to relieve the concrete austerity of the new superhighways that were springing up in America. In recent years medians have appeared back in cities and suburban areas as a way to add green space and to beautify the community. Plants in median strips suffer indignities not encountered by average garden plants. They are hit by large vehicles, suffer lack of water, and in winter are sprinkled with road salt. There is also less soil to flourish in for trees confined to an island. A construction project is underway opposite the trees in this photo and you can see where people drive over the corners of the grass. And, if you were ever wondering if it is true that moss grows on the north side of trees you can see here that indeed it does.

Resources

Island and Median Strip Planting by William Flemer

Bolton Hill History by Fred Shocken

Doves

On the second day of March we had unusually cold temperatures and a snowstorm. I was going to take the usual snow shots of my back yard but when I looked out the window I saw this roosting dove. Mourning doves like this one are familiar sites in my neighborhood. I even had one roosting in an empty windowsill flowerpot one year. Like this bird, it didn’t seem to be bothered by being so close to a building.

Also like this bird, most Mourning Doves are medium sized and can measure about a foot long from beak to tail tip. They generally have small heads, long pointed tails, and are pale brown in color with white edges to their wings. Males are a bit more colorful, with rose-colored breast feathers and a bit of blue on the backs of their heads. They make a cooing sound that sounds like “Oooo ooo oooo”, which is why they are called the “morning dove”. These birds are similar to pigeons in that they bob their heads when they walk. Also like pigeons, they were popular game birds in Colonial times. They can still be hunted in Maryland and in some other states between fall and spring. Other than humans, the dove’s main enemies are hawks and tapeworms.

A lot of doves migrate south but as you can see here some still stay up north. Doves are found in all 50 states and adapt to most habitats, from rural areas to cities. They have even been reported near beaches. In winter they prefer to stay in flocks but they separate into pairs for mating and nesting. They begin breeding in March and April and their mating season can last to about August. Typically, they lay exactly two small white eggs. Both parents take part in chick rearing.
I’ve am told that Mourning Doves prefer ground feeding and that they mainly eat grains and seeds. They are fond of millet, and ours eat the millet seeds that other birds reject from our feeder. Aside from that, these birds are considered beneficial due to their high consumption of weed seeds. They are also just pleasant, soothing birds to have around in an urban environment.

Resources:

All About Birds: Mourning Dove

All-birds.com Mourning Dove

Familiar Birds-Mourning Dove, contributed by Winsor Marrett Tyler

Maryland Department of Natural Resources: Creating a Wild Backyard: Mourning Dove