berm supremacy
Above is an Italian cypress planted in a berm.
And another, purchased at the same time, from the same source, planted directly in the ground. I sang the praises of berms earlier here. That was before the observation came up that a berm, before planting, looks like a burial ground for an elephant. Good for a laugh, but a comparison of the two trees gives you some idea why this gardener remains committed to berm-building.
October 31st, 2009 at 6:17 am
Hi Ricki~~ Here, here! Absolutely. Better drainage for one thing. Much easier to achieve a friable loam and I think a berm or raised bed is much easier to design because you’ve already achieved–at least in part–the vertical element. I like your scientific illustration. It pays to berm.
You mentioned “drive-by shootings.” I don’t think I would use the term in my column but with blogging I think we can take a few liberties. My philosophy is, turn a negative colloquialism into a positive one. When I think of drive-by shootings my first thought is, “Where the he** did I put my camera? Oh crap I just ran a red light. Whew close one.” But nobody died. Getting hate mail is just preposterous, in my opinion. It’s not like the colloquialism is sacred or anything. Anyway, I’m sorry you were dissed for trying to be clever. I don’t have exclusive rights so go for it. [Oh yeah, and VW [Blotanical garden blogger] uses the term “mug shots” when discussing a particular plant genus so tell those naysayers to stick that in their pipe and smoke it.]
October 31st, 2009 at 6:24 pm
Grace: Thanks for the encouraging words. Ain’t blogging grand?
November 2nd, 2009 at 6:02 am
Love the comparison photos! And I’m dying to know the story behind Graces comment!
November 4th, 2009 at 5:38 am
Wow, that’s an impressive comparison. There is a guy who is trying to get Portland folks to build more berms on the street to help with noise abatement as well as city beautification. I told him about your blog but forgot to give him the URL - I’ll go do that right now!
November 5th, 2009 at 11:21 pm
Loree: Some people get all pushed out of shape when we use terms like “drive-by-shooting’ in a flippant way. Grace and I just seem to be on the same page with that.
Karen: He did show up with a comment, but I had no luck getting back to him. Hope he checks in to see this post. Anyway, thanks for the referral.