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Border Patrol early March 17 2009
Or The Seasonal Walk Saga

By Tovah Martin

To March 17 Chronicle To Prophetic HarbingersTo Tulip IslandsTo Notably Different

Prophetic Harbingers

Seasonal walk stirring

Those prophetic harbingers sent out the heads up, prompting the staff at the NYBG to scurry around, don boots, set up scaffolding above the ten foot wide border, and shimmy across boards to cut back the last vestiges of flower stalks carrying the flame for Oudolf’s masterful perennial element of the collaboration through winter.

The wind-bleached stalks of Sporobolus heterolepis (prairie dropseed), sedums (stonecrops), echinaceas (coneflowers), amsonia (threadleaf bluestar), and Japanese anemones that stood tall all winter were hastily shorn down. Also cut clean were the stubbornly evergreen spikes of Sesleria autumnalis (autumn moor grass), Salvia ‘Eveline’ (sage), Origanum laevigatum ‘Herrenhausen’ (ornamental oregano), Calamintha nepeta (lesser calamint), Geum ‘Flames of Passion’ (avens), and Eryngium bourgatii (sea-holly) to make way for fresh growth and the spring bulb extravaganza.Next