NEW HAMPSHIRE NEWS 



This year Tanglewood 

 Gardens in Bedford, oper- 

 ated by Joe Komisarek, 

 his wife Louise, and their 

 son Tom, will be using a 

 new house of their own 

 construction and design. 



The steeply sloping site 

 has been being prepared 

 since 1979. A dry-con- 

 struction stone retaining 

 wall— 80 feet long; 10 

 feet high at its deepest 

 point — was built on the 

 SW side and fill from a 

 construction site brought 

 in to build up the land. 

 On the NE side, ledge 

 had to be blasted and part 

 of a hillside removed. A 

 second retaining wall was 



built to hold back the rest of the hill. At the east 

 corner, this wall is twelve feet high (eight feet of 

 rock on four feet of ledge) and one can stand on 

 top of it and look down onto the roof of the green- 

 house. 



All the rock used was quarried on the property. 

 It was cut into usable sizes by the traditional 

 method: drilling a line of holes with a carbide-tip 

 drill, inserting wedges, then tapping the wedges, 

 building the pressure slowly until the rock splits in 

 an even break. 



The new house is a perfect square — 72x72, its di- 

 agonal axis aligned to the compass points. From 

 five foot-high side walls (a 2 1/2 foot-wide vent 

 above a pressure-treated horizontal planking base), 

 the pyramid-shaped roof rises at a 20.75-degree 

 angle to an 8x8 central cupola capped with a small 

 polycarbonate pyramid and maybe a weather vane. 



The covering is double-poly. The frame is alumi- 

 num; the supports are standard galvanized Schedule- 

 40 water pipe. The aluminum connectors were fabri- 

 cated on site. 



Joe, with sons Tom, Dan, and Ken, began con- 

 struction in the summer of 1990. Concrete pads 

 were poured, then side supports set in place. The 

 roof structure was put up in sections, working from 

 the outside comers toward the center. (Each hip 

 beam is made of three sections, each spliced to the 



TANGLEWOOD GARDENS— 

 THE NEWEST HOUSE 



"A perfect square topped by a pyramid gives the maximum 

 square footage iuith the least exposed surface." 

 Joe Komisarek 



next. The planning had 

 to be exact, because the 

 four beams connect at 

 an exact center point. 

 If one of them was off, 

 "the whole building 

 would be misaligned." 

 But none were — "every- 

 thing fit perfectly." The 

 square base of the cupola 

 is bolted onto the four 

 beams. 



Joe will use no fans or 

 poly tubing. Air flows 

 through the side vents 

 and rises out the lou- 

 vered cupola. "Natural 

 convection will reduce 

 the energy consumption 

 of fans." And Joe feels 

 the shape of the house 

 will give a more uniform temperature. "In quonsets, 

 there are hot spots, cold spots; temperatures warmer 

 at the fan end, cooler at the other...." 



The new house will have a four-foot wide center 

 aisle with wooden benches (made of 2x1 1/2 strips, 

 ripped down from 2" hemlock stock) on each side. 

 And all of its vertical supports (there are 64 of 

 them) will be interconnected by horizontal galva- 

 nized piping. This will give structural stability and 

 serve as a growing space for hanging baskets. 



On the slope above the wall, trees will be cleared 

 for 20 feet, then spot-cut on the rest of the slope. 

 So there will be more light and some wind protec- 

 tion as well. 



Tanglewood Gardens began in 1973 as a hobby. 

 Today four houses (the Pyramid House, two 

 Oehmsens and a redwood-and-glass house — also 

 home-designed and constructed — connected to their 

 home) grow wholesale poinsettias, geraniums, and a 

 variety of rooted cuttings and hanging baskets year- 

 round. Their market is the smaller grower without 

 the space for the order numbers larger companies re- 

 quire. In spring the retail business adds, among 

 other things, perennials, bedding plants, and over 

 200 varieties of herbs. 



Tangleuiood Gardens is on Route JO J in Bedford; the 

 telephone is (603) 472-3737. (B.P.) m- 



EUONYMOUS SCALE 

 BIOLOGICAL CONTROL 



This summer New Hampshire will 

 be participating in a USDA 

 euonymous scale biological control 

 project. Surveys will be conduct- 

 ed to determine the natural en- 

 emies of euonymous scales here in 

 New Hampshire. Euonymous 

 plants will be categorized accord- 

 ing to the degree of scale 



infestation. 



The surveys will also help to 

 determine whether or not two 

 beetle predators are present in the 

 state. One of these is Chilocorus 

 kuuianae, a ladybug first released 

 here in Northfield, New Hamp- 

 shire, in 1988 bv NH Department 

 of Agriculture Plant Industry per- 

 sonnel. The other is Cycocephalus 

 nipponicus, a nitidulid beetle 



which also attacks euonymous 

 scales. 



If people know of infested 

 plants in the Concord, Manches- 

 ter, Portsmouth, or Northfield ar- 

 eas, it would be appreciated if 

 they would contact the NHDA 

 Plant Industry Division office in 

 Concord at (603) 271-261. 



continued on next page 



April/May 1992 7 



