Winter inspiration for meadow, garden and woods

Chances are you know or have heard of Jeb Breece.He is one of a handful of the Northwest Corner’s “new guard”—young, talented and interesting people with can-do spirit — whose creative output makes life here even nicer than it already is.

Breece’s outward low-key nature belies his achievements which would appear ambitious even for a person without a full-time job and a family.The third season of his “Bad Grass” speaker series is designed with the dual purpose of reviving us from winter doldrums and illuminating us on a topic of contemporary gardening — by which I mean gardening that does not sacrifice the environment for the sake of beauty nor vice versa. There are two upcoming talks taking place at the White Hart:Feb. 20 featuring Richard Hayden from New York City’s High Line and March 6 where Christopher Koppel will riff on nativars. You won’t want to miss either.

An investment manager by trade, Breece and his wife Sabina rented a weekend house in Kent in 2011 just after they had their first child.Soon after he began to volunteer at a nearby farm and then started to cultivate a small cutting flower bed.Breece’s insight — that it is a rare farmer who is great at both growing and selling — led him in 2020 to aggregate demand and supply for cutting flowers by creating a monthly flower market at Kent Barns in collaboration with RT Facts. Coinciding with Covid, the outdoor market became, in many ways, a respite during a challenging time.

Covid provoked Breece and Sabina to move full time to Salisbury.Soon after, he met Page Dickey who had just published her book “Uprooted.” Had it not been for this book and his friendship with Dickey, Breece admits that his front yard would have been landscaped with a version of boxwood and liatris and the existing grass lawn would have been maintained at great expense.Dickey introduced him to organic landscaper Mike Nadeau and a meadow was born.

Meadows.I have written quite a bit about them in this column, in part because a meadow can be a wholesale solution to the lawn issue.It is by no means the only solution but, for a large expanse, it can be extraordinary to behold.The creation of a biodiverse native habitat where there was only a version of grass and weed is a sensation-filled wonder, but it does take a while to achieve this graceful state unless you have the wisdom of Nadeau — and his machinery — behind you.Now going into its fourth year, the Breece meadow has evolved as new native perennials and grasses show up.“It is beautiful to look at from the house but is best experienced from its interior where you can see, hear and feel the life around you.”

While his world view on gardening has changed, Breece doesn’t think of himself as an advocate of native habitats.But he is.The proceeds from Bad Grass this year will go to its 2025 partner project, Steep Rock Preserve’s “Holiday House” project to transform the space into a “ruin garden,” preserving its historical significance while enhancing its natural beauty and restoring native vegetation.

The spongy moth infestation of 2021 and 2022 feels both a long time ago and like yesterday.Walking in the woods, as I did this morning, the effects of spongy moth are more visible than they were last year; the winter winds have blown off the dead limbs from trees that succumbed to the voracious moths’ leaf-eating appetites.On our property we were able to save many trees using BtK and trunk wraps.But most of the truly glorious giant oaks – some well over 70 feet tall and almost as wide - succumbed.Now, several years later, these limbs are taking down smaller trees as they fall to the ground.There is not much to do about it right now unless you can safely relocate a fallen branch that has landed on and distorted an otherwise living tree. Events like this are a reminder of how many young tree recruits we need to ensure the viability of a woodland. This spring there will be quite a bit more light reaching the woodland floor as a result of the dead trees. The open canopy means an opportunity for growth.It is up to us to decide what will grow in these spaces as, without our intervention, they will be overgrown with invasives, prohibiting native trees from growing and destroying a previously viable habitat.Look for these spaces and pull out the invasives as they grow in.For more on the topic go to www.theungardener.com/articles/the-over-under-a-bet-on-the-future-of-the-woods

Dee Salomon ‘ungardens’ in Litchfield County.