I have power again, but am still waiting for phone, cable, and internet access to be restored. But the most recent outage, which follows a number of outages of considerable (at least 24 hours and averaging about 4 days) length, has me wondering about power lines. As a lay person, it is easy for me to say ‘just bury the wires’. It would presumably prevent the outages that happen regularly from downed wires and it would be a whole lot nicer looking. I justify this stance having coming from a place where the norm is to have buried wires – even though, in colorado and much of the west, overhanging trees are not a serious concern (as they are here in the East). It all makes little sense to me that where we seem to need buried lines the least is where we have them and where we need them the most is where we do not. Certainly, it is a legacy issue that I think we need to get past.

I was recently listening to this story on NPR and given my predilection to underground wires, I have to admit that I found the guest, Ted Kury unconvincing and unable to make a good argument for NOT burying wires. I sensed that as much as I try to justify my standpoint, he was trying to justify his – neither of us being entirely fact based and reasonable.  But he is the expert and I am not, so I hold him to a different standard. Certainly cost is an issue, but as I delve deeper into the subject — having read this, and this and this, (all articles about power lines and whether to bury them or not)  I have a number of questions that are not addressed by any of these assessments.

First, the quoted cost of a mile of underground wiring is generally stated to be 1 million dollars.  I am sure the people who came up with the number are perfectly intelligent reasonable people, but I have to cry foul.   One million dollars per mile?  Really?  Seems awfully high….I would love to have a good explanation for this.

Further, this is an awfully broad sweep of a number….I can assure you that hook my house us to the huge solar array across the street from me (about a mile away by road) would NOT cost a million dollars. It is a country environment and little disturbance to existing roads and buildings would need to happen.

Second, there is an argument to say that even though the lines are buried as they get closer to delivery points, the main lines that are from the centralized points of power creation are still overhead and always will be.  Ok — but that seems almost irrelevant to this argument - these are not the lines that go down in an ice storm, a hurricane, a tornado, or an early fall snow.  These lines look like the ones in the picture above — note the lack of trees. The point is largely irrelevant and panders to the non-thinkers.  Besides — whose to say that these can’t be buried as well?

Third, and most importantly (as far as I am concerned) is, there seems, to be little discussion of two increasing factors.  Climate change and the increasing decentralized shift in our electrical infrastructure.

Only the most died in the wool contrarians among us can still argue that climate change is not happening.   Climate change is causing all sorts of weather that is unexpected.  Hundred year floods are happening every few years, major storms are becoming a regular occurrence, and around the world, the metrics on which all sorts of cost benefit analysis’ are based on have become inaccurate.  The cost of major outages is huge, and if they happen once every ten years vs once every other year (as recently in New England) the cost vs benefit argument changes dramatically.  When are these assessments going to start acknowledging the reality of our changing world?

Also, as we smartly start to implement a varied and diversified energy production strategy (solar, wind, etc), we are quickly shifting from a centralized grid (where power generation is localized to the area it supplies and is provided by large single sources) to a decentralized grid.  Small producers are now providing a two way street and are adding to the grid by generating power with solar arrays on individual homes, and wind farms are often located far away from the centers that they serve.  Power now needs to travel far, and the old system that resembles a highway system with major arteries narrowing down to country roads doesn’t seem ideal.  Increasingly there are major solar (power) installations on those country roads and poor infrastructure to get the power to the people who can use it.  We need a real grid — that I suspect might include a few more buried lines.

I am no expert on this sort of thing, and would love to hear from you if you are…..but I am a person who can spot a non-sensical and illogical load of poo when I see one and the old fashioned arguments that overhead power lines are the right thing for our modern and changing times is one that I am not so sure applies anymore.  What do you know about this?  Lets discuss….

image: Gabriel Allon

I am feeling quite accomplished, it is only four days since I have returned home, and the luggage is back in the attic (laundry still awaits) the garden is about half reclaimed from the weeds, mowed and the mid summer resurrection process has begun, and I have organized my pictures.  As I got them all together yesterday, I realized that there were some pretty inspiring shots for all kinds — glamping, construction, natural beauty, desert style, wildflowers, and even a little garden design.   I picked some of my favorites for you…..enjoy. (make sure you click through to the gallery because each image has a description to tell you more about it)

Here was our route –

Day 1 – Denver (actually Castle Rock)  – Great Sand Dunes N.P. – Mesa Verde  N.P. (fourth of July in Mancos. CO)

Day 2 – Mesa Verde

Day 3 Mesa Verde – Four Corners, Canyon de Chelly National Park, Hubble Trading Post National Monument,  Holbrook, AZ.

Day 4 Holbrook, AZ – Petrified Forest, Flagstaff, AZ,  Grand Canyon.

Day 5 – Grand Canyon N.P.

Day 6- Grand Canyon

Day 7 – Grand Canyon, Vermillion Cliffs, Glen Canyon Dam, Kanab UT (Hollywood for Westerns), Zion N.P.

Day 8 – Zion N.P. – Bryce Canyon N.P.

Day 9 – Zion N.P.

Day 10- Zion N.P. – Capital Reef National Park – Arches National Park (Moab, UT)

Day 11 – Arches N.P.  and Canyonlands N.P.

Day 12 – Arches N.P. – Taylor Canyon (Near Crested Butte, CO)

Day 13 Taylor Canyon

Day 14 – Taylor Canyon – Castle Rock, CO (via tow truck)

If you are headed out to any of these places — drop a note — I feel like I am now a minor expert and may be able to make some recommendations or pass along some been there advice.

Do you have any summer adventures planned?  What will be inspiring you this summer holiday season.

I’m so excited about the latest in garden center gossip.  According to Garden Center magazine, Urban Outfitters (the parent company of Terrain) has applied to the Westport, CT  city planners to convert a used car dealership into the second Terrain Store.

The proposal calls for the new establishment to keep the shell of the existing building, but woudl reduce the square footage from 22,000 sq ft to 17,000 sq ft and extensive landscaping of the property.

“We’re going to use our own landscaping team to landscape every free area we can,” said Ken Nemeth, Urban Outfitters’ senior development manager. “We’re going to do some very unconventional, beautiful things with the landscaping.”  (oh — I  can’t wait to see it!!)

Have you been to the Terrain store in Pennsylvania?  I haven’t but have thought about making the trek this summer….if you have been, what do you think?  Love it? Wish it were more places? overrated?

image from a life’s style

Now that Prince William is married and has a receding hairline, the crush that I once had on him doesn’t seem quite so Mrs. Robinson-ish.  I do however still love that he has become the patron of the fitness field.  (how charming, right!)

Watching this video made me think about those fields in England as opposed to those here in the US.  Outside of the very core of major cites, they are quite different.  In the UK most fields are part of parks and well integrated and attractive public facilities that are used by lots of people.  Here in the US we get some of that in places like NYC’s Central park or other large urban parks, but step into the suburbs or further into the rural landscape and they frequently become these things that are plopped down where ever their might be space.  They are never given priority for walk-ability or easy access to those that would most use them.   They are never pretty and these days they rarely have much more than a big flat field for field sports only. I am thinking of the fields that I grew up playing soccer on as a kid.  It was called Banbury and it was former turf farm.  At the time, and for more than 30 years now it  remains a huge expanse of fields stacked on top of each other, not a tree in sight, and with a big muddy rutted out parking area.  Oh, the sunburns I got. No one is there unless it is Saturday soccer morning and I think what a waste.

I wish that we could recognize the value of these community resources and make sure that they are built in places and in a way that is actually supportive to the community.  It’s just too rare to have a fully utilized public park in this country.  I’m not even sure how to change such a thing except for on a completely local grass roots level.  What do you know?  How could we, as a community, elevate the public park and encourage them to be better designed, better placed, better funded resources?

Folly Builder.

Can you think of a better business card title?  I wonder if anyone in the US has that title?   Folly’s are much more common in the UK where Paul Taylor runs Alchemy Gardens- a specialist folly building company.

According to Wikipedia, “In architecture, a folly is a building constructed primarily for decoration, but either suggesting by its appearance some other purpose, or merely so extravagant that it transcends the normal range of garden ornaments or other class of building to which it belongs.”

Right, because how else can you justify an elaborate rock cave built for the mere purpose of housing a stone devil that looks like he is emerging from the shadowy underworld?  And justify you should.  Why not?

Follys in my mind, while arguably a bit Disneyland, are the ultimate in garden escapism and personal expression.   I love a good folly, I hope someday I can find a client brave enough to request one.

All these images are from the portfolio of  Alchemy Gardens, and many are in the permanent show gardens that they have built at their headquarters in Worcestershire, England,  where they showcase their work.

I try not repeat myself too often, but in this case i just have to make and exception.  I first introduced you to Matt Mattus and his Plant Society magazine nearly a year ago.  It had three issues then and now there is a fourth with a fifth probably due out any time.

I am a little behind on my reading, as I just got to reading #4 today.  It was released early this year, before we had giant earthquakes and tsunamis but interestingly, it is the ‘Japan’ issue.   The gardening culture in Japan is long and strong and this issue is worth the 3 bucks you pay for it at magcloud if for no other reason but to take a visual feast of a tour (pre- earthquake).

I was happy to learn about Ume plums (which I sadly can’t grow in my zone, but you can, if you are in zone 7 or above), shokubutsu (you will have to buy the magazine to find out what that is), and the Tokyo Grand Prix (the worlds largest orchid show – which is now on my life’s to do list).  Once again, Bravo Matt.