During this 2007 holiday season, it seems the children are all nestled asleep in their beds, with visions of sugar plums dancing in their heads… oh, wait. You say the “children” are all teenagers now, terminally bored with Christmas and expecting a 10-gig iPod loaded with every album too objectionable to be played in public, plus keys to a car and $400 worth of “Prison Chic” pants that hang somewhere around the thighs and show off their underwear?

Did the fudge never set, so you had to run to the store to buy enough ice cream to disguise the un-set fudge as super chocolate syrup? Were those tollhouse cookies hard as a rock, breaking grandpa’s dentures with the first bite? Did cousin Jim finish off the entire bottle of rum you’d brought for eggnog before passing out under the tree? Did the dog eat that perfect glazed ham before you could get it into the oven to heat? Did it snow during the night and hide all the firewood you’d stacked somewhere in the yard for the Christmas Eve fire? Are the in-laws insisting on watching Enemy of the State as a “Christmas Movie” instead of It’s a Wonderful Life for the 16th time?

Be of good cheer, enjoy yourself anyway, and…

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

When my daughter was earning her theater technical degree at UNCA, she designed a set for a rather bizarre theatrical production of “Hansel and Gretel at Auschwitz” or something like that, which I never saw and didn’t really want to see. She brought home the ugliest of creepy metal trees made out of welded rebar and promptly installed it out by the footed bathtub from her production of “Hair,” which we now use as the final hole for the top nine disc golf course.

Now, we live in a lovely chestnut cabin on some seriously ‘graded’ acreage next to the Pisgah National Forest. So it’s not hard to imagine that I’ve no particular use for an ugly rebar tree. Yet that was six years ago, and today that ugly metal tree is one of my favorite lawn sculptures. The English ivy she planted around the base has grown up to cover the trunk in variegated dark and light green lushness. Wild pink roses and Japanese honeysuckle now compete for sunlight over the entire top and branches, trailing almost to the ground in places and spectacular in bloom.

So I’m not all that adverse to ideas about how to combine modern, recycled materials and technology with real natural greenery and flowers to make interesting homescapes. The eastern wall of this cabin is half rock, and when we moved in it was covered in ivy. Made for a really pretty picture, but we had to pull it all down when we discovered it was rotting the siding, providing shelter for a variety of stinging pests, and crumbling the rocks.

So it caught my eye when I saw an article about the ‘Vertical Garden’ walls of botanist Patrick Blanc in an interview with him for Ping. I’ve just gotta get me some of those!

The system is sort of hydroponic. A metal framework onto which PVC plastic is attached and covered with felt. Regular tap water mixed with something like Miracle Gro drips from the top of the wall and keeps the felt wet, and all sorts of plants grow just fine without any soil! This keeps the walls light-weight enough to put up almost anywhere, though if they’re indoors they’ll need some grow lights. Blanc describes it for Ping:

The Vertical Garden is composed of three parts: a metal frame, a PVC layer and felt. The metal frame is hung on a wall or can be self-standing. It provides an air layer acting as a very efficient thermic and phonic isolation system. A 1cm thick PVC sheet is then riveted on the metal frame. This layer brings rigidity to the whole structure and makes it waterproof. After that comes a felt layer made of polyamide that is stapled on the PVC. This felt is corrosion-resistant and its high capillarity allows a homogeneous water distribution. The roots are now growing on this felt.

Watering is provided from the top with the tap water being supplemented with nutrients. The process of watering and fertilisation is automated. The whole weight of the ‘Vertical Garden’, including plants and metal frame, is lower than 30 kg per square meter. Thus the Vertical Garden can be implemented on any wall without any size or limitation of height.

I’m thinking that I could maybe use such walls as an alternative to new siding, at least on the front of the cabin where it’s seen on approach. It would certainly keep the south wall much cooler in the summer, and Blanc claims his walls are great insulation against the cold as well. If I were really clever I could also cover the deck rails and foundation and make the cabin practically invisible to the unaided eye!

But alas, I know what would happen. Skinks and copperheads would take over, the whole place would be one giant garden spider web in no time at all, and those house-eating carpenter bees and hornets would immediately move right back in. I just live too far out in the woods for a real vine-covered cottage.

But there’s good news! Blanc’s walls work indoors as well. Check out this photo of “organic wallpaper.” A wall like this is way beyond Feng Shui at bringing nature into a living space without bothering with all those philodendrons and spider plants and ferns I always forget to water.

I’m definitely going to get my sister the plant physiologist interested in one of these walls for the inside of her new log home in Lake Lure. It’s definitely her style, and she’s got just the windows for it!

October 15 has been designated “Blog Action Day”, when bloggers are encouraged to write about our environment and things regular people can do to reduce their environmental footprint on the planet and help steward the environment we depend upon to sustain our lives.

Here in beautiful North Carolina we are blessed with environments so spectacular and desirable that much of our drawn income over the year comes from visitors and tourists who just can’t get enough of us! This of course can cause some environmental stress, yet we’ve done a pretty good job so far of not urbanizing ourselves into depression and not so polluting our air and water that it’s struggle just to stay alive.

Out in the rural piedmont and mountainous west there is somewhat of a ‘housing boom’ going on. Despite overpriced land and housing in many areas of the country and a ‘bubble’ that is bursting as we speak, North Carolina still offers reasonably priced land and eco-friendly houses for young families, out-of-staters seeking vacation homes, and retirees seeking peace and a connection to the earth. A key to that housing boom isn’t just the relatively low price of land, it’s the popularity of log and timber frame homes and a sizable number of eco-conscious builders operating in our state.

The Log Home Advisor explains the industry and why it is that people from all stations in life are increasingly turning to these fine homes in lieu of the standard cheaply built tract homes of suburbia that seem destined primarily to become the slums of the future. The Log Homes Journal offers important tips on choosing the right location, the right home and the right builder to ensure you’re getting the most for your investment.

These and other sources (links below) will tout the environmental plusses of long, timber frame and hybrid houses. Some suppliers rely upon ‘culled’ timber from National Forest management, some get their logs from tree farms which produce largely for this industry. Still others, usually local to areas where homesteaders would want to live, boast that they get their timber from standing dead and down trees, which is a positive forest management practice that well serves the environment.

Here in western NC, we are dealing with infestations of insects that have killed off huge stands of southern pines and stately old hemlocks. While the US Forest Service and NC Extension Service are working hard to save young trees with new treatments landholders can obtain free for their trees, the swaths of standing dead still harboring these insects in their bark are a fire hazard as well as unsightly. This is a great deal of fine timber (pine and hemlock make excellent log homes) there to be harvested, and many harvesters are in the process of getting permits to do so. Why, the ultimate handyman could even build it himself! There are plenty of plans and instructions out there.

Thus a log home buyer need not feel guilty about the trees it takes to make their home, or to produce the timber for framing, or the siding inside or out. They get a sturdy, well-insulated shelter that will outlast almost any tract home in any suburb. Log homes are energy efficient, saving on heating and cooling costs as well as the energy resources used to generate electricity to provide heating and cooling. Log homes stay warmer in the winter and cooler in the summer than standard houses or modulars, and out here in the west where there’s lots of shade and nights are always cool, many happy log homeowners don’t bother with air conditioning. It’s simply not necessary.

These cozy homes can be heated with wood, which is handy if you live in the woods – you can provide your own fuel and keep fit while you’re at it! Wood burning stoves are constructed to last at least as long as the house they heat, with modern efficiency and pollution control technologies built-in. In some log homes with 2 stories and loft, or with 15-20 foot cathedral ceilings, the exhaust pipe can be situated in such a way that as much heat is gained from exhaust as from the stove itself. Most heating sources can’t claim this kind of efficiency, and most homes can’t claim the solidarity to keep so much of that heat inside rather than radiating it outside.

Even if you’ve chosen a model with whole walls of glass to make your beautiful view a big part of your everyday living, most homebuilders offer double-paned insulating glass that keeps the cold out and the heat in for prime energy efficiency.

More and more of the visitors to North Carolina fall so in love that they decide to move here and live where their hearts feel most at home. Luckily, we have the space, the environmental consciousness and the wherewithall to welcome them happily. Check out some of the great links below and see if your future plans might include a home in North Carolina. You won’t be sorry!

Links:

Log Homes Journal

Western Carolina Real Estate Co.

North Carolina Lands & Properties

Natural Log Cabin Siding

An Environmentalists’s Guide to Responsible Wood Heating

GARN Smokeless Wood Heating System

Greenwood Hydronic Wood Furnace