We’re still prematurely wearing through tread on the Porta Hedge’s rear passenger tire. When we stopped this afternoon at a service area on the Pennsylvania Turnpike we realized that the tire was completely bald with white chord showing, so we left the Hedge at the parking lot with a crew member inside while we acquired a new tire in the nearby town of Everett.
Porta Hedge Waits Without a Wheel
Thanks to the invitation of LAUREN EWING, the Porta Hedge and its crew stopped over at a 200-year-old historic farm in Vincennes, Indiana on our way back east. Lauren’s brother Mark Ewing and his wife Rebecca, who own and operate the 500 acre farm, recently placed it in a conservation trust that will preserve it from encroaching development in the future.
Started in 1806 by Nathaniel Ewing, who received a commission from President Thomas Jefferson to become a receiver of public lands, the farm still produces corn, soybeans, and wheat, and has groves of old and young pecan trees, walnut trees, sugar maples, and hazelnut trees.
Mont Clair has plenty of trees, but not a single hedge. The farm also has a pack of coyotes who wander through at night and devour the barn cats. Enter the Porta Hedge: mobile observation platform for spotting coyotes and dissuading them from entering onto the property.
We learned, however, that the two Great Danes who recently joined the Ewing family are excellent coyote deterrents. There’s also the fact that the Porta Hedge is shorter than the surrounding corn (hedge on stilts?)
Alternatively, after seeing the modern dwelling that Lauren recently designed and had built at Mont Clair, we decided that the Porta Hedge could make a stylish, modern, prefab landscape element. Look out for Lauren’s home in the November issue of DWELL Magazine
Mark Ewing Discussing Soy Bean Crops
Chloe and Duke Scout the Soy Fields for Intruders
Porta Hedge at Mont Clair
Chloe and Duke Join Chris in the Porta Hedge
The Porta Hedge in Front of Yellow Corn #2
Lauren Ewing at Her Home at Mont Clair
We had over 300 visitors in the Porta Hedge Friday night during the First Friday gallery event and the chalkboards filled up quickly with autographs, doodles and the occasional observation.
Here are a couple of photos from the Southwest that we shot with our fish eye camera.
Porta Hedge Opens up in the Desert
Porta Hedge Crew at 115 Degrees
World of Hedge Branches
Singer songwriter MIKAL SHAPIRO joined the Porta Hedge crew yesterday evening at the intersection of Southwest Boulevard and Baltimore Avenue during Kansas City’s FIRST FRIDAY in the Crossroads Art District. In addition to enjoying Mikal’s performance, visitors were invited to come inside and explore the Porta Hedge’s observation lab. Many of the visitors expressed their enthusiasm at the possibility of using the Porta Hedge to observe their neighbors.
Upon arriving at our host’s house in Kansas City, we were informed that the neighbor had reported seeing a gang on our host’s front porch a few evenings prior. The neighbor called the police, but no gang was found. We decided to help out the neighborhood by conducting an observation session late last night. The results are documented in this video.
Believe it or not, the Porta Hedge has been on the road for a month since it started its national tour at the beginning of July. Despite a replaced tire, scorched plants, and bare spots where branches have succumbed to the 65+mph winds, the Porta Hedge is holding up quite well on the road. Perhaps better than the team driving it around. We’re taking a two day layover in Kansas City to recuperate and to perform a neighborhood watch on W 39th Terrace. In this area of Kansas City armed robbery is still a reality despite the beautiful architecture, manicured lawns and watchful neighbors.
Porta hedge Arrives in Kansas City
Porta Hedge Tours Kansas Sunflower Fields
The Oasis in Colby, Kansas is not just a mirage. With a Starbucks, Baskin Robbins, Quiznos and Chester Fried Chicken, the Oasis has everything weary travelers require to break up the lush monotony of corn and sunflower fields.
Oasis in Colby, Kansas
Having heard about the man-made brook and aspen grove at Denver’s REI store, we decided to stop in for a visit. The brook and trees were delightful, but the real surprise was on the inside. If you walk through the front doors and turn left, looking up over your left shoulder you will see an excellent selection of artificial evergreen trees! There must be at least a dozen varieties on the mezzanine, but REI was not willing to part with any of the trees, despite our request that they donate one to the Porta Hedge to fill in the bare spots that have developed on our tour.
Artificial Evergreen Selection at REI
The proprietor of the Fish Taco Truck that pulled up behind us on 14th Street in Denver made a compromise with me – he backed up his truck long enough for me to get the Hedge door open (fortunately I was not in the Hedge when he pulled right up behind us) and then he pulled forward again until we were just barely touching.
Porta Hedge-Fish Taco Truck
Hello Fish Tacos!
The Porta Hedge is located at 14th Street and Araphoe Street in downtown Denver today. Despite Denver’s honorable initiative, GREENPRINT DENVER, which aspires to plant a million trees in the city (they are currently at 142, 491), the Porta Hedge is currently the biggest green object on the block. So you can’t miss it – stop in for a visit if you’re around.
After an exhausting drive through the Southwest from Los Angeles to Colorado, we decided to take some R&R at the Wal-Mart parking lot in Castle Rock, Colorado. Wal-Mart provided everything we needed: a free place for the Hedge to stay, food to make dinner, and our new 42″ flat screen television. The Dreamworks animated film OVER THE HEDGE never looked better!
We were amazed at how inexpensive a 42″ flatscreen television is (rumors blame this on – or credit it to – the continued devaluation of the Yuan we are told). We were also surprised at how easily big boxes like Wal-Mart allow customers to return merchandise. Wal-Mart agreed to take the television back the next morning simply because we complained of it’s awkward fit in the Hedge. Nobody asked us if we bothered to measure the space before we purchased the television.
On our return leg across the United States we are looking for locations that could benefit from a Porta Hedge. Particularly, unsightly industrial sites within a few hours of Interstate 70 anywhere between Denver, Colorado and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. If you have a suggestion, something we simply can’t miss, please CONTACT US and we’ll gladly consider a stopover.
On a more practical note, the Porta Hedge wore out its first tire after only 6,000 miles. Oddly enough, none of the other three tires showed significant wear, so it seems that the worn out tire must have been defective.
New Tire for the Porta Hedge
The area of Arizona just south of Interstate 40 between Woodruff and Pinta is full of dinosaurs and fossilized trees; this is the home of the PETRIFIED FOREST NATIONAL PARK.
It’s hard to imagine that before the Porta Hedge was a plastic hedge, it was once (long, long ago) the living organisms thriving in seas like the one that enveloped the now petrified quartz trees lying out on the surface of the land in the park.
Yet, with its broad representation of the Late Triassic paleo-ecosystem, the Petrified Forest may contain relatives closer to the Porta Hedge than one initially thinks.
Dinosaurs in Arizona
Porta Hedge and Petrified Log - Contemporaneous?
Porta Hedge Tours the Petrified Forest National Park
Controlled burns limited our visibility on Highway 64 as we approached the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, and the canyon itself was blanketed in haze all morning. Even so, it was evident that the walls of the Grand Canyon were too tall and steep to allow passage of a Porta Hedge by conventional road vehicle. So we left the Hedge in Parking Lot B and scouted the South Rim on foot.
It became clear that the only way to get a Porta Hedge into many areas of the Grand Canyon would be by helicopter lift – picture an elephant with large straps slung under its belly being lifted over the Serengeti, except with a Hedge over the Grand Canyon. There are several companies offering helicopter tours through the Grand Canyon, and after consulting with a few of them, we determined that getting a Hedge down into the canyon would not cost an unreasonable sum.
Porta Hedge Helicopter Lift into the Grand Canyon
Porta Hedge in Grand Canyon Village
With frequent controlled burns of the understory, the KAIBAB NATIONAL FOREST south of the Grand Canyon has plenty of space between the ponderosa pine for a Porta Hedge stopover. Camping in the National Forest is permitted one quarter mile off of Highway 64, so last night we drove out on a dirt road, set up camp, and gave the forest a light show as never seen from a hedge.
Porta Hedge Light Show
With little to no rainfall and a penchant for exotic plants and architecture, Las Vegas presented itself as an ideal future location for Porta Hedges. We found plenty of locations along Las Vegas Boulevard (the Strip) that would benefit from the privacy a Porta Hedge affords. Additionally, the Mobile Observation Lab would provide a means to observe and manage the desultory characters hanging around the South Strip between the Stratosphere Tower and the Sahara, who surely detract from the Las Vegas charm and glamor that is otherwise so carefully cultivated.
As such, I will post an open letter on our blog this week and mail it to the NEVADA GAMING COMMISSION, the NEVADA RESORT ASSOCIATION, and the LAS VEGAS POLICE DEPARTMENT, in which I will outline the benefits of placing Porta Hedges along the Strip.
Single Porta Hedge at the Stratosphere Tower
The thermometer on the Porta Hedge reached 115 degrees Fahrenheit yesterday, the highest to date. Despite one exploding bolt, the Hedge has held up as well in the high heat of the Southwest as in the rainy cold of the Northeast. Unlike their artificial container, not all of the living plants on the inside have adapted as well to the extreme shifts in temperature and exposure to sunlight. Here are some of the results – none of which seems to vary from the publicly available plant care information on the internet:
Boston Fern
As documented elsewhere, we found that the Boston Ferns do not like intense heat and direct desert sunlight. Where not shaded by the solar panels, burned leaves turn brown and die.
Distressed Boston Fern
Spider Plant
The spider plants have proven the most resilient so far and are growing happily when given moderate shade.
Spider Plant Thrives
Christmas Cactus
Don’t let the name fool you, this plant is not a true cactus. This plant does not like extreme heat or sunlight and it is uncertain whether the cacti in the Hedge will survive the trip. However, with shade cloth protecting the plant from intense direct sunlight, it might grow well in the Porta Hedge.
Christmas Cactus Near Death
Golden Pothos
This plant is doing well except where exposed to intense direct sunlight, which yellows the leaves. With the addition of shade cloth where the solar panels do not provide shade, the Golden Pothos should continue to thrive in the Porta Hedge.
Golden Pothos Needs A Little Shade
Philodendron
Even in moderate direct sunlight, this plant showed fatigue. Brown withering leaves are the result of direct sunlight. As with the other houseplants, more shade is required.
Philodendron Leaves Tomorrow
