Bahçe Hastası in Turkish / Garden Freak Artık Türkçede

After several friends here told me they wanted to read my blog but didn't know English, I decided that I would add Turkish. It's a bit daunting, because although I work as a translator, I always translate from Turkish to English (translating into Turkish is the Turk's job!). But I suppose it's a good exercise to develop something resembling a Turkish writing style. (Turks, be patient with me!) I toyed with the idea of doing a separate blog in Turkish a la "Zen in the Kitchen / Mutfakta Zen" but I'm not nearly as industrious as Tijen Inaltong! So for now I'll mostly give a summary of the English, and selectively (and gradually) translate some of the older blogs.

Birçok Türk arkadaşımın, "blogunu okumak istiyorum fakat İngilzceyi bilmiyorum" diye şikayet etttikleri için, artık Türkçeyi de eklemeye karar verdim. Biraz göz korkutucu aslında çünkü çevirmen olduğum halde sadece Türkçeden İngilizceye çeviriyorum (Türkçeye doğru çevirmek, Türklerin işidir zaten!). Yine de Türkçede bir uslup geleştirmek için iyi bir pratik olur hiç olmazsa. (Türkler, sabrınızı rica edeceğim!) "Mutfakta Zen / Zen in the Kitchen" tarzında ayrı bir Türkçe blogu oluşturmayı düşünüyordum da, Tijen hanım kadar çalışkan olmadığım göre, şimdilik ağırlıklı olarak İngilizce postları özetleyeceğim, hem de seçerek (yavaş yavaş) daha eski postların bazısını çevireceğim.

A Local Epimedium and Associates

Almost from the moment I first saw Epimediums in Pacific Northwest gardens, they became one of my favorite genera. Their delicate "jester hat" like flowers and wire-thin stems give the impression that they are exotic and possibly a bit difficult to cultivate, but in truth they are mostlhy tough-as-nails plants that stand up to almost anything a bad gardener can throw at them. In my Seattle garden I had Epimediums growing at the base of shrubs and trees like flowering cherries, which sucked all the water out of the soil almost as fast as I could water, and still they thrived. Though they all are pretty much variations on the same familiar theme - think but leathery compound leaves on wiry stems, generally with lightly toothed edges, and small or large sprays of four-petaled flowers, there is such variety in the details that it's hard to grow tired of them. The flowers come in a broad spectrum of colors, from white through yellow orange and red to pinks and purples; only blues are absent. Some, like E. brevicornum, have rather simple flowers apparently composed of only four white petals with no visible spurs around a small boss of stamens, while others, like E. grandiflorum, sport long arching spurs, truly deserving the frequent comparisons with a "jester's hat.

The common name for Epimedium is "Barrenwort," due to the old belief that drinking a concoction (I love that word...) of its crushed leaves would prevent conception for five days. Paradoxically, the other common name is "Horny Goat Weed," extract of which is sold as an aphrodesiac. I guess it's an example of nature providing the perfect solution - sexual desire with no consequences? I hope they don't learn about it in the tourist markets of Istanbul, or the stacks of the paste made from honey and forty-odd herbs touted in recent years as "Turkish Viagra" will undoubtedly be accompanied by some new product, almost certainly to the detriment of local Epimedium populations.

Here in Geranium-Petunia-Impatiens land, Epimediums are unknown in nurseries, and before British Sterling sank to nearly 1:1 with the Euro, ordering them from England was prohibitively expensive. (And being a free-lancer in the present economic situation I'm more than a little prone to reining in my plant lust when a bit of money comes in...still...maybe if I only order three Epimediums...) So I was thrilled a few days ago when walking in the woods near the village of Polonezköy about half an hour north of where I live, to see clumps of very familiar leaves everywhere. They were Epimedim pubigerum, fairly common in the forests along the entire Black Sea coast. Perhaps not as popular as some of the more exotic Epimediums, it is nonetheless a very worthwhile plant to grow, with tough evergreen leaves topped by generous sprays of snow-white substantial flowers in the spring, and when grown in optimal conditions, happily spreads to provide a nice ground cover. I saw beautifully dense stands of it several years ago in the Belgrade Forest north of Istanbul. The soil where I was over the weekend is dense and clayey, and when wet is like thick cement, so the plants were a bit more sparse, scattered singly across the forest floor, but they were definitely hanging in there. So I "liberated" three of them and brought them into the nicely manured soil of my garden where they should be very, very happy.

There are at least three more species of Epimedium in Turkey: E. alpinum, E. perralderianum and E. pinnatum var. colchicum, but I haven't seen them yet; the second two grow only in eastern Turkey near the Georgian border. E. alpinum, which should theoretically exist somewhere around here (perhaps on Uludağ?), has pleasant bicolor flowers, yellow edged in a brick-red; while E. perralderianum has long generous panicles of clear yellow flowers. E. pinnatum var. colchicum is quite similar.

Two other attention-grabbing plants were in evidince in the forest arond Polonezköy: Daphne pontica and another common plant in the area, Ruscus aculeatus, known locally as tavşanmemesi ("rabbit teat"....why?) or kokina. The second name derives from the Greek word kokkinos, meaning "red." This name is especially used around New Year's, when it is sold in the flower markets of Istanbul in leiu of holly. It's another plant that is tough as nails and hangs on in harsh dry conditions and poor compact soils, but when it's happy it is lusher and produces dense bunchs of deep red berries, making it the favorite New Year's decoration. In the picture it is featured in a New Year's Advertisement from FinansBank. As for Daphne pontica, it's quite variable in its habit depending on conditions. I saw it in the Black Sea several years ago growing on a roadside; the plant was nicely formed and compact. It the forests here it tends to be somewhat ungainly with one or two or three whorls of leaves at the end of long, straggly stems. A slightly better one is pictured in the "Iznik" post below. I brought one home and am curious to see if a little more sun and less clayey soil might reform it.

Amerika’nın kuzey batı bölgesindeki bahçelerde Epimedium’ları hemen hemen ilk gördüğüm andan itibaren en sevdiğim cinslerden oldular. “Soytarı şapkasına” benzeyen zarif çiçekleri ve tel gibi ince gövdeleriyle, biraz egzotik, zor yetiştirilebilen bitkiler olduğu izlenimi verebilse de, aslında çoğunlukla kötü koşullara direnebilen, dayanıklı bitkiler oluyor. Seattle’daki bahçemde Epimediumları, kiraz gibi sular sulamaz bütün suyu topraktan emen ağaç ve çalıların dibinde yetiştiriyordum, fışkırıyorlardı. Hepsi benzer bir şema paylaşmalarına rağmen – ince gövdelerde, ucu hafif dişli ince fakat kart yapraklar, ve küçük veya büyük dallar üzerinde dört yapraklı çiçekler – bu ana planın içinde o kadar çok çeşitlilik var ki zor bıkılır. Çiçeklerinin rengi bembeyazdan turuncuya, kırmızıdan pembeye, mora uzanan çok geniş bir yelpazede açıyor, sadece gerçek maviler eksiktir. E. brevicornum gibi bazılarının çiçekleri çok sade iken, diğerleri, E. grandiflorum gibi, gerlinen uzantılarıyla “soytarı şapkası” ile mukayeseleri tamamen hakkediyor.

Eskiden, İngiliz halkının arasında ezilen yapraklarından yapılan bir çay içilrek hamile kalmanın beş gün boyunca önlenebildiğine inandığı için “Barrenwort” adıyla anılan Epimediumlar, aynı zamanda afrodizyak olarak da kullanılıyordu, nam-ı diğeri “Horny Goat Weed” yani “Azgın Keçi Otu” ima ettiği gibi… İnşallah İstanbul’un turist pazarların esnafı haberdar olmaz yoksa artık “Turkish Viagra” olarak satılan mesir macunun yanında, yerli Epimediumlaın zararına, yeni bir ürün de kuşkusuz yerini alır…

Bildiğim kadarıyla yerel fidanlıklarda hiç bilinmeyen Epimediumlar, İngililtere'den satın alınabilir fakat Bretanya Sterlin'in değerinin ani düşüşünden önce Epimediumlar için bile öyle bir para harcamayı düşünemiyordum. (Zaten yavaş yetiştikleri için, "daha ucuza" bulunmalarına rağman hiç bir zaman ucuza satılmazlar...posta ücretleri yüksek, sadece bir tanesi almak söz konuzu değil, değmez ki...yine de...belki sadece üç tane alsam....) Dolayısıyla birkaç hafta önce Polonezköy'ün yakınındaki ormanda yürürken o tanıdık gelen yaprakları her tarafta görünce çok sevindim. Bütün Karadeniz kıyısının ormanlarında çok yaygın olan Epimedium pubigerum idi. Batıda, daha egzotik Epimedium türleri kadar revaçta olmasa da, yetiştirmesine kesinlikle değer. Dayanıklıdır, yaprakları kış boyunca solmaz, ilk baharda bol bol bembeyaz çiçek açıyor. Bahçeniz yoksa bile, yine sırf onu görmek için Belgrad ormanına bir yolculuğa değer. Bulduğum yerdeki toprak, sert, beton gibi kil toprağıydı ve yine gayet iyi yetişiyorlardı. Daha zengin topraklarda çok daha güzel gelişiyor tabii.

Türkiye'de E. alpinum, E. perralderianum ve E. pinnatum var. colchicum olmak üzere en azından üç Epimedium türü daha bulunsa da ben daha görmedim. İkinci ve üçüncüsü sadece Doğu Karadeniz, Gürcistan sınır bölgesinde yetişiyormuş. Kırmızıya çalan pembe çiçekler açan E. alpinum, varsayımlı olarak bu bölgede bulunmalı fakat nerede olduğna dair hiçbir fikrim yok. Belki Uludağ'da? E perraldianum, parlak sarı çiçekler açıyor, E. pinnatum var. colchicum ise çok farklı değil.

Yukarıdaki fotoğraflarda, geçen Mayıs'ın başlarında ziyaret ettiğim, Seattle, Washington'daki Elisabeth C. Miller Botanik Bahçesinde yetişen değişik Epimedium türleri görebilirsiniz.

My Non-Ascent of Uludağ! - Uludağ'a Çıkmayışım!

One of the nearby "plant paradises" that I've wanted to visit for a long time is Uludağ. One of the highest mountains in western Turkey, Uludağ is an extension of the Pontos range that stretches through the Black Sea. It rises up behind the city of Bursa, just south of the Sea of Marmara. Higher than any of the other mountains anywhere near, it has large numbers of endemic species. I'd kept getting wrapped up in things and put off my visit way too long as it will start snowing up there any time now.

Touted as "Yeşil Bursa" (Green Bursa), modern-day Bursa is not nearly as green today as it once was. When I first visited in 1982, it was still a city with whole neighborhoods of old Ottoman houses, mostly within its old bounds, overlooking a green plain filled with fields and orchards, especially the peaches for which the city is famous. Peaches are still an important crop in the area but the plain is increasingly being filled with...Bursa. Like most Anatolian cities, it has lost most of its traditional architecture to a flood of cement apartment buildings, with only a few incongruous Ottoman-era mosques and hans hinting at its former state. Luckily consciousness is changing and some city governments are now standing up to the everything-for-profit destruction of traditional architecture.

The mountain was one of many known as Olympus to the Greeks (there was a tendency to call the largest mountain in any region Olympus), and is the Olympus referred to in many plant names. This causes some confusion as to the actual origins of some plants. One such plant that I really wanted to collect seed of was Verbascum olympicum, which is commonly referred to as "Greek mullein" even though it doesn't exist anywhere in Greece. Actually, the only place in the world that it occurs naturally is Uludağ. Verbascum olympicum is similar in leaf, but whereas common mullein offers a single vertical inflorescence, V. olympicum really goes to town (where does it get all that energy in a year?) and sends up a spectactular candelabra thickly covered with yellow flowers, often with over fifty branches. Although it's commonly offered in the horticultural trade, more often than not it's mixed in with V. thapsus, the common mullein also known as Aaron's rod. A Google search for images of Verbascum olympicum will bring up all the evidence of this you need; after you filter out the inevitable 50% or so mislabled photos, you will find some that are quite convincing, others that are not so spectacular. There are actually several mullein species in Turkey and Greece with densely multi-branched inflorescences; one of the largest ones is V. speciosum which gets a good 6 feet high or more. V. olympicum is shorter but with a much broader inflorescence in its true form.

So my fellow plant freak friend Hüseyin and I took an evening ferry from Istanbul to Mudanya, then hopped on the bus that took us to Bursa, and spent the night with relatives of his there. We were a bit worried that it may have started snowing already since there had been some rain and the mountain was shrouded in fog. The morning revealed a snow-free peak, and we excitedly boarded the dolmuş that would take us to the teleferique (cable car) that would take us up to (almost) the top. There is a transfer point at a slightly lower elevation that we were sure would be worth checking out too.

When we got to the end of the dolmuş line, we asked where the teleferique was. A man showed us but said "It's probably not working though, there's a lodos. The lodos is a powerful, warm south wind that can come up during the winter. It can last several days, shut down ferry lines for days, and is almost always followed by other kinds of nasty weather. We got to the teleferique station and the sign on the door confirmed our fears: "Teleferik, hava muhalefetinden dolayı çalışmamaktadır." "The cable car is not functioning due to inclement weather." Although the mountain sheltered us from most of the wind - at times it seemed even quite still - we could see the clouds racing over the peak.

We knew we wouldn't be seeing any giant mullein but decided not to give up completely, and did the next-best thing - we decided to walk up a road that led up the north side of the mountain from near the teleferique station and see what we could find. The road led up through mixed forest of chestnut, some oak and evergreens as well. Since the road had been cut into the side of the mountain, there was also a lot of disturbed ground and rock faces, both of which offer habitats for plants that might not grow among the trees themselves. The road we were following turned out to lead to a village, Zeyniler, which was the subject of a famous old Turkish novel, Çalıkuşu, about a teacher who goes up to teach in a mountain village. As we got up to the point where the road turned and we would get our first view of the village, a car coming out stopped, and the driver warned us, "don't go into the village, the dogs will attack you." O-kaaay.... When we got to the bend, we got our first view - there in a beautiful valley ringed by mountains, was perhaps the most unremarkable village I've ever seen, quite disappointing considering that the village of Cumalıkızık, also very near Bursa, is full of beautiful old Ottoman houses. (Part of the village is visible in the picture of the mountain above.) So we were not tempted to risk dog attacks. What was remarkable on the other hand, was the wind; it was so strong that when a particular strong gust blew down from the mountain, we struggled to stay upright. We later learned that Istanbul had been hit hard as well, and the floating Karaköy boat terminal had broken free of its moorings and sunk, luckily during the night when it was closed. Among the rocks were lots of small bulbs, probably Muscari species, and a little Sedum.

There are two other mulleins that are endemic to Uludağ, one of which is also common in the horticultural trade. The common one is V. bombyciferum, and as it's always been a favorite plant of mine, I was happy to see it all over the place with plenty of seed spikes loaded with seed. Some of the selections in the trade are more densely felted than the most common wild form, but it's still a great plant. We found it growing in disturbed ground but also plastered against the rock faces. The plants growing in the rubble were more robust but the large white leaves pressed against the rock were also a special sight. The other endemic mullein is V. prusianum. It's by no means ugly, similar to V. thapsus with a single flowering stalk but with darker, thinner and more arching leaves.

One of the common plants on the rock faces was Hieracium bithynicum, a hawkweed that is very well adapted to living on rock faces, drought tolerant and covered in a thick white indumentum to help it conserve water. It reminded me of a mini-Verbascum.

Of course if you are interested in collecting seed, you don't go when things are in flower, so it's good to recognize seedpods as well. One plant I hadn't noticed while we were going up was this Campanula (bellflower) with its typical seed head; once I saw one, I started noticing it everywhere. Early summer must be quite spectacular there. It was nice to have Hüseyin along; he doesn't know Latin names but he does recognize plants, and can recognize almost anything no matter what stage it's at. Other plants we saw a lot of were various thistles, a Cerinthe species, Primulas, a semi-succulent Ajuga, Euphorbias, Stachys (tmolea?), several different Salvias, the seed heads of something that looked typically Muscari-like but maybe two feet tall, a hairy-leafed violet species, and lots of ferns. Since these were all growing at fairly low altitude, they should probably do well in the Istanbul garden as well.

A few other goodies included a very nice pale green sedum, which for some reason I didn't collect any of:

And some nice thistles, which I could appreciate in the wild but didn't really want to grow in the garden...

Uzun zamandır ziyaret etmek istediğim İstanbul'un yakınındaki bitki cennetlerinden biri, Uludağ'dır. Bölgedeki diğer dağlardan çok daha yüksek olduğundan pek çok endemik tür barındıran dağa hep "gideceğim" deyip mühtelif sebeplerden yolculuğumu erteliyordum...

Türkçenin devamı geliyor...

Wild Things!

This post is more "botanical" than horticultural in nature but in a place like Turkey, which is the source of so many of the plants we love to grow in our gardens (well, not here but in other places), the two do overlap! Last week I went on a mushroom hunting trip with my housemate to Iznik, where we were joined by other friends in the area. I'll only post one mushroom photo since mushrooms aren't plants, and this was definitely not something we would be eating, but these Amanita muscaria were so beautiful I couldn't not include them!

The first evening we went to the village of Çandarlı, at an elevation of over 1000 meters. On the way up, I came across a small stand of a very nice Verbascum (mullein) which I believe is V. undulatum. A beautiful thing with its white fur and wavy margins. Unfortunately there were no seeds to be had. I did see a likely looking stalk from the car farther on but it was getting dark and...well, I missed the boat!
The house where we stayed is in a huge meadow surrounded by beech and pine forest. The Amanita was growing here, as were these crocus, which covered whole fields.
On the way down, when we stopped to take pictures and along the road was a stand of this Verbascum. The best-known mullein in the west is V. thapsus, or Aaron's rod, a rosette of felty leaves that sends up a single spike of yellow flowers. But the genus is much more varied than that, and with 75+ species, Turkey is the center of distribution for this genus. They range from small alpine species through purple-flowerd V. wiedemannianum to the huge and spectacular V. olympicum, endemic to Uludağ, with its thick gray leaves and dense candelabra composed of hundreds of flower spikes. Actually there are several species that produce these candelabras; but V. olympicum is the grandaddy of them all. Also on Uludağ is V. bombyciferum, which is also quite popular in gardens in the west; and I hope to make a trip there before the snows start to fall. All the Verbascums fascinate me, even the ugly duckligs of the genus. l love the convoluted leaves of this particular one; I haven't seen it in bloom but its inflorescence is also much-branched. I did grab seed of this one, and it seems to thrive at a variety of elevations. Others are more picky; my favorite mullein to date is V. bellum, which I saw growing on disturbed ground in the high ceder zone on Babadağ near Fethiye. Huge rosettes of leaves clothed in a deep fur of pure white make up for the fact that the flower spikes aren't the most spectacular in the world. It was not at all happy in Seattle but if I go back to Fethiye I'll definitely try it again here. In Seattle it didn't like the wet; it may also resent the heat and humidity of Istanbul but it's worth a try!
Other plants I brought for the garden included several specimens of a wild geranium that was very common on the forest floor, a Phlomis (not sure which one; it seemed to prefer shady places. We'll see in the spring!) and lots of seed of Digitalis ferruginea, which was also very common in the mountains. This Daphne was quite widespread in the next place we went, above the village of Müşküle on the south side of Iznik lake.
On the slopes of the mountain was lots of wild thyme.
Of course most of the color was not from flowers. This upright rose had lots of brilliant round hips. The villagers use the hips of another common wild rose, Rosa canina, to make a marmelade.

Bu post, bahçivanlıktan çok botanikle ilgili, fakat bahçelerimizde yetiştirdiğimiz bitkilerin (e..burada değil de başka ülkelerde öyle) öyle büyük bir kısmının anavatanı olan Türkiye’de, ikisi iyice örtüşüyor! Geçen hafta ev arkadaşımla beraber yaban mantarları toplamak için İznik’e gidip, orada yaşayan iki arkadaşla buluştuk. Mantar, bitki olmadığı için sadece bir mantar fotoğrafı ekleyeceğim. Kesinlikle yiyeceğimiz bir şey değil de, bu Amanita muscaria öyle güzeldi ki paylaşmaktan vazgeçemedim!

İlk akşamı, 1000 metre rakımındaki Çandarlı köyünde geçirdik. Yaylaya çıkarken Verbascum undulatum olduğunu düşündüğüm çok güzel bir sığırkuyruğu türü buldum. Beyaz tüyü ile dalgalı kenarlarıyla çok güzel bir bitkidir. Maalesef toplanabilecek tohum yoktu. Biraz ilerde ona benzer bir şey gördüm fakat karanlık basıyordu ve…fırsatı kaçırdım işte!
Kaldığımız ev, kayın ve çam ormanıyla kuşatılmış kocaman bir yayladaydı. Yukarıdaki Amanita gibi büsbütün yaylayı kaplayan bu sonbahar çiğdemleri de burada yetişiyordu.

Ertesi sabah inerken yolun kenarında fotoğraf çekmek için durduğumuz bir yerde bu Verbascum (sığırkuyruğu) türü de yaygındı. Batıda en çok tanınan Verbascum, V. thapsus oluyor. Keçeye benzeyen yaprakların ortasından sarı çiçeklerle dolu tek bir çiçek sapı çıkıyor. Fakat cins ondan çok daha çeşit içeriyor, ve 75 küsur türüyle Türkiye, cinsin dağılım merkezi oluyor. Küçük alpin türlerden mor çiçekli V. wiedemannianum ve yüzlerce çiçek sapından oluşmuş, kocaman bir şamdana benzen bir çiçek duruşu ve kalın gri tüylü yapraklarıyla muhteşem olan Uludağ endemeği V. olympicum’a kadar çok geniş bir yelpaze kapsıyorlar. Aslında öyle şamdanlar oluşturan birçok türü var fakat V. olympicum, bütün sığırkuyruklarının anasıdır kuşkusuz. Uludağ’a endemik olan V. bombyciferum da batıdaki bahçeler epeyce popüler bir çiçektir, karlar yağmaya başlamadan önce oraya gideceğimi umuyorum. “Çirkin ördekleri” dahil bütün Verbascum'lara hayranım. Bu türün kıvırcık yapraklarını çok seviyorum, çiçeklemesini görmedim fakat geçen yıldan kalan saplar çok dallıydı. Çok değişik rakımda bulunan bu türün tohumunu toplayabildim. Başka türler daha müşkülpesent oluyor, şimdiye kadar en sevdiğim sığırkuyruğu, Fethiye – Babadağ’ın yüksek sedir bölgesinde gördüğüm V. bellum’dur. Çiçekleri çok etkileyici olmasa da, saf beyaz derin tüyle kaplı kocaman yaprakları, çiçeklerinin eksiklikleri için telafi ediyor. Seattle’da hiç mutlu değildi fakat Fethiye’ye dönersem kesinlikle burada da denerim. Seattle’ın soğuk ıslaklığı sevmiyordu her halde, İstanbul’un sıcaklığı ile nemini de sevmeyebilir ama denemeye değer!

Bahçe için çok yaygın yetişen bir yabanıl Geranium’un (Sardunya) birkaç tanesi getirdim. Bir Phlomis türü de vardı, hangisi olduğundan emin değilim, biraz gölgeli yerler tercih ediyordu. Hem de her tarafta yetişen Digitalis ferruginea’nın tohumunu da topladım (İngilizce adı, “tilki eldiveni”dir, Türkçesini bilmiyorum). Büyük ihtimalle Daphne pontica olan bu bitki, Müşküle köyünün arkasındaki dağın tepesinde çok yaygındı.

Dağın yamaçlarında bol bol yabani kekik vardı.

Tabi ki o mevsimde rengin çoğu, çiçeklerin değildi. Bu dik yetişen yaban gülünde çok parlak al kuşburnu vardı. Yuvarlak meyveleriyle bu bitkinin, yetiştirmeyi çok istediğim Rosa eglanteria olabildiğinin çok daha sonra farkına vardım. İlkbaharda açtığı mis kokulu pembe çiçekleri yanı sıra, bu gülün diğer ilginç özelliği, güzel kokan yapraklarıdır. Özellikle yağmurlardan sonra etraflarına mis gibi bir yeşil elma kokusu saçıyor.

Going...going.... Gitti gidiyor!

...well, not quite gone, but I finally got the landlord's permission to do away with the butt-ugly storage shed at the back of the upper garden.

...e tam gitmedi de, üst bahçesinin arkasındaki dünya çirkini depoyu yok etmek için ev sahibinin iznini nihayet alabildim.

It turned out to be a double job because it is actually a shed-built-onto-a-shed; inside was a second wall and door; evidently the first structure was insufficient to hold all the junk so they added on. It is a messy, dirty job. I'm really glad I've gotten over most of my arachnophobia because the place is crawling with European house spiders, which would give me a bigger case of the willies than any tarantula ever could. Something about the big, gray bodies and outsized legs...they just seem to be filth incarnate. The scorpions seem to have retired for the winter but I'm still being careful when I pick things up.

Of all the junk in there, there were only a very few things of any value - a couple of neat old-style porcelain sinks and some interesting old iron spikes. There are also some fascinating old rusty metal machinery parts of some sort that might have decorative value in the right kind of garden. My garden is probably not the right kind, but we'll see. All that needs to be done now is haul the junk out, deal with the roof, and the rest will come down easily. It's got a cement floor, so, we have a patio! I haven't determined if it goes all the way to the railing; the building doesn't, so there is probably some planting space there.

Sonunda çifte bir iş çıktı çünkü gerçeklikte depoya eklenen bir depoymuş, içinde ikinci kapılı bir duvar vardı. Herhalde orijinal yapı, bütün çöpleri içine almak için küçükmüş, eklemişler. Çok kirli, pis bir iş. Araknofobimi çoğunlukla yendiğim için sevindim çünkü etrafı koskocaman Avrupa ev örümcekleriyle kaynıyor. Bunlar, beni herhangi bir tarantuladan çok fazla ürkütebilihyor, bu büyük gri gövdelerle biraz fazla uzun bacakları...pislik ta kendisi gibi geliyor bana. Akrepler ise kış uykularına çekilmişler galiba fakat eşyaları kaldırırken yine biraz dikkat ediyorum.

Barındırdığı çöplerin arasında gerçekten değerli olan çok az sayıda eşya var - iki tane harika eski porselen lavabo ve ilginç demir çiviler. Hem de belki uygun bir tarza sahip olan bir bahçede süs değeri olabilen birkaç çok ilginç makine parçaları var. (Benim bahçem uygun bir tarza sahip değilmiş galiba...bakarız..) Şimdi yapılması gereken, çöpleri çıkarıp çatısını halletmek, gerisi kolay. Beton döşemesi var, güzel bir oturma alanı olacak. Ta korkuluğa kadar ulaşıp ulaşmadığını daha tespit edemedim, bina oraya kadar varmıyor o yüzden büyük ihtimalle biraz toprak da olacak.

It Was Only a Matter of Time...

I'll take a short break from garden talk to tell you about a recent development in Turkey. Night before last, I went to post an entry into my blog. Instead of the Blogger.com page, I got the dreaded read and white screen shown below, which means that Blogger.com has taken its place with the thousand-plus websites, including include Geocities, YouTube, and most recently, Worldpress, which have been blocked in Turkey.

The reason for the ban was not immediately clear but came out later - there were a few blogs that ran criticisms of a Turkish Islamic Creationist. It's very easy to get a website blocked here if you have friends in the right places especially, or if there is any perceived insult to the founder of the country. Never mind what an excellent opportunity Youtube and blogs are to promote Turkey, her culture, her music, her traditions, her touristic potential. Instead, we have just one more reason to be embarrassed.

Luckily, almost everyone knows how to get around these bans, which makes them all the more absurd... Unless the government goes the route of Iran and blocks all the proxy sites, Turks will continue to participate in the world via the internet, and I'll keep posting!

Update (November 24): The blocking of blogspot has been lifted for now, though other sites remain blocked. Responding to a question about internet censorship, the prime minister (!) said: "I can get into YouTube." I guess he uses proxy sites too...

(Türkçe yorumu yok, gerek de yok zaten, bu pencereyi çok iyi biliyoruz ya offfff...) :-P

Old House Revisited

A bit of morbid curiosity overtook me a few days back, and I decided to go see what had become of my old house. The one bit of consolation after having my house expropriated was that all the area was to be turned into a large park, and if there's anything Istanbul needs, it's more green space. This is a city where you will see people from the villages having a picnic, or just sitting, in overgrown empty lots or on the green embankments of highways, simply because they want an alternative to cement. The officials from the city were talking about people from the gardens department, and though a voice inside told me to take that with a grain of salt, there have been some good projects in Istanbul during the last few years, including honest attempts to make it a greener, more livable place. Of course as far as I was concerned, my garden was a very liveable place. And the empty lots next door were full of trees of several kinds. Not only was it a nice place for me, it was a habitate for all sorts of wildlife - birds like this shrike that visited one day, as well as protected species like martens. Not purple martins, but martens, the large ferret-like mammal. They would play (and fight viciously) at night and sometimes wake us with the strange twittering cries.

The last time I'd gone there, the surorunding area was still a wasteland and the house I lived, along with its garden, were still intact, because as private property it took longer to expropriate (the remaining areas were in the hands of religious foundations).

So I showed up that afternoon to find...this! This, apparently is the current concept of a "park" in Istanbul. I suppose people don't want kids' feet to become too accustomed to actual ground, given that they have to live on a cement substrate. Another green (if rather unkempt) habitat has been turned into a concrete expanse. Our door to the yard/garden was directly across from the old single-story house on the left. Almost all of the trees that were on the land have been removed (on the pretext that "children might climb them"). For a people that have mostly rural roots, a paradoxical attitude indeed. They did leave the one walnut tree that used to be in the mosque's garden.

As for the are where my own garden was, that was being done away just as I arrived; the workmen hauling out the rubble that was my house. The fig trees were all gone, and the next target of the bulldozer was the large black mulberry tree (in the background), which had been famous in the neighborhood for years. This area will no doubt become an extension of the concrete expanse as well. Istanbul has done some very nice park restorations, Gülhane comes to mind. But evidently where tourists are not involved, greenery just not so important.