Lifestyle Garden

The Long Wait

2012-01-26T11:21:00.004-05:00

Corydalis 'Blackberry Wine' has disappeared from my garden in the past, so I was pleasantly surprised last spring to find this surviving bit of a larger clump from the year before.

It is particularly problematic to have to wait to see if something has successfully seeded itself into your garden. All too often plants that self seed become pests. The nursery said this Papaver miyabeanum is short lived but would seed itself around. This planting represents my second try. We will see in the spring.

Primula polyneura is one of the primroses I am hoping to convince to take up residence in my garden. This one looks a bit chlorotic and not very vigorous, so I wonder if it is happy enough to come back next year.

Winter is the time for planning next year's garden, but as I plan I am anxious about what I can expect to see in the spring that survived the winter. For example, over the last few years I have been experimenting with primroses, and I want to continue to try more, but what will the fate be of the ones I planted last spring or even the spring before that? Many seem so vulnerable to any interruption in their ideal growing conditions that I always fear they will give up on me. If they go dormant in the late summer, as several do, I wonder, will they be back?

At work (Kingwood Center) I planted a hundred or so bare root Dicentra spectabilis (Bleeding Heart). I finally got around to planting them long after I wanted to because it was such a wet spring. In the end I practically pushed the bare roots into the mud. Amazingly they grew, but will they be back again this year?

Perhaps the biggest mystery is with my rock garden. Many of the plants I try among the rocks are said to be intolerant of winter-wet. Short of putting a roof over them in the winter (which is apparently often done by some very serious rock gardeners), I can only hope I have selected a sufficiently well drained site for my winter-wet sensitive plants.

Typically in gardening there are annual windows of opportunity (sometimes semiannual), and if the window is missed a year is lost. I often tell myself in August that I am going to reorganize a particular garden in the spring. Spring comes and goes, and I gnash my teeth the next year looking at the same problems I meant to fix. This problem is exacerbated when it is not certain even what plants to expect to be extant. Do I order plants for areas that may already be fully planted?

Part of the answer is to be a bit reckless. Cautious gardening doesn't work well on many levels and waiting to be sure will lead to overly modest or no action.

So as I sit hear thinking and writing I am convincing myself to charge ahead. Order more primroses; buy more plants for the rock garden; expect the bleeding heart to thrive. Time is more valuable than the cost of a few redundant plants.

Does it Make You Happy?

2011-12-22T11:04:00.000-05:00

I was recently awed by the Garden Conservancy's description of one of their new associate personal gardens which integrates art and garden. I was feeling rather inadequate as I thought of how this person managed to incorporate works of accomplished artists, architects and garden designers into his abode and even, as Claire Sawyer describes, his lifestyle. Then I was reminded of my sister's work with garden sculpture. She scavenges junk yards for things she can weld together to make garden sculpture, and she is good at it. She is no Isamu Noguchi, but neither are about seven billion other people. In this era of easy (at least visual) access to the works of the very best, it is easy to forget the joy and satisfaction of the vernacular, especially the vernacular with which you can enjoy a personal connection. I am pleased that the Garden Conservancy is helping to preserve the home of this literati who has apparently managed to lead a rarefied life and direct the creation of an inspiring garden, but the lesson of the garden should not be that this accomplishment is beyond you and me. It should be that the creative process is a source of joy and gratification not measured by fame and fortune but by your own sense of satisfaction with the effort. Now, as I think about it, my regret is that I haven't yet acquired one of my sister's pieces for my own garden.

Julie Platt in Grand Valley, Pennsylvania created the sculptures you see below. While sunflowers are a popular theme with her she has done a number of other plants and creatures that I failed to photograph. And if you are a fan of "Big Bugs" she has her own version shown at the bottom created as a special commission.

Grudging Respect

2011-11-28T11:08:00.001-05:00

Three toothed cinquefoil with its white flowers and sometimes straggly growth

Three toothed cinquefoil the following year showing a nicer form and an attractive fall color (click on the picture for a better view)

I often advise gardeners to be ruthless with unsatisfactory plants in the garden. This fall I am following my own advice by ripping out big swaths of plants in one of my gardens that was just not achieving the affect I wanted. I am looking forward to the opportunity to create a new look in the area. Sometimes, for some reason, plants find a way into my garden for which I have preconceived disdain. Three toothed cinquefoil (Potentialla tridentata, and now maybe Sibbaldiopsis tridentata) is a current example. I had often observed it growing in other gardens and noticed it was usually chlorotic, at least in part. I put it in my rock garden where it is relatively aggressive. I have had to pull it away from neighboring plants on several occasions. I got the plant as a table favor which was a bad sign. I planted it thinking that as the garden filled I would remove it for something more desirable. But now as I look at it with its red fall color I see it has formed a nice mound of foliage that looks pretty good. It is like one of my favorite movie lines, "Good night Westley. Good work, Sleep well. I'll most likely kill you in the morning." (Princess Bride)

Venerable Plants

2011-10-21T08:57:00.002-04:00

My approximately 130 year old farm house includes a Norway spruce that must be close to one hundred. Many old farm houses throughout rural Ohio and Indiana sport venerable old Scots pine, Austrian pine or Norway spruce.

Among the many emotions that we have for our gardens, one that is often present but rarely consciously developed is veneration. We don't usually think about making a plant venerable (bonsai being a conspicuous exception), although there are actually many opportunities. Certainly we can't make a tree ancient, although if we are lucky enough to have old trees we can make their survival a priority. We can also recognize that some plants have growth habits the predispose them for precocious venerability. I recently visited the Morton Arboretum in Chicago and photographed a sixty year old hawthorn. Sixty does not seem like a venerable age for a tree, but hawthorns reach maturity faster than others. Neglected hawthorns can look unsightly. It would be tempting when moving onto a neglected property to remove the overgrown hawthorns, but they may be worth the effort to save and prune for future veneration that may only take ten or twenty additional years. That is a fast track for a venerable tree.

This sixty year old cockspur hawthorn (Crategus crusgalli inermis) has precocious venerability.

An even faster track can be had with other plants. I once grew an amaryllis for a decade or so. It methodically filled the pot and provided a grove of flower stalks in the spring. Its maturity and relative longevity gave me great satisfaction. It was venerable. Far more impressive examples of venerable potted plants other than bonsai can be seen at the Philadelphia flower show. The display of potted plants is my favorite part of the show.

A potted plant like this amaryllis can be venerated, in this case after about ten years of cultivation during which it spread to fill a series of ever larger pots.

Perhaps the fastest avenue to a venerable status is had by monocarpic plants. I have written about my Cardiocrinum cordatum at least a couple of times. Perhaps I am trying to discover just why I find it so interesting. Since it has to grow for several years before it flowers and dies (leaving offshoots behind), I think of a flowering Cardiocrinum cordatum to be quite venerable when it manages to finally build up the energy to flower.

A plant that has to accumulate energy over several years in order to finally flower and die induces a sort of veneration when it finally puts up that flower stalk, especially if a gardener has been growing the plant all those years waiting for the big moment.

There are many ways in which to imbue a plant with venerability, but I will give only one more example. When my mother died I assumed responsibility for her rather substantial Clivia. I have shifted it up a couple of times but really should divide it. I resist the temptation. Somehow as long as it is growing altogether in the same pot it has the venerability of an inherited plant, passed down from one generation to the next. If it was divided it would lose some of its special association as my mother's plant, although I often hear of people who are very proud of plants they propagated from their parents or grandparents gardens. A similar example involves plants with historic associations. I recently saw a little sapling that seemed to be highly venerated because it was somehow genetically connected with an alleged original Johnny Appleseed tree. As you might guess I didn't share the feeling of veneration in this case, but far be it from me to diminish their pleasure in the association of their tree with the history of Johnny Appleseed.

An inherited plant like this Clivia comes with a special emotional status.

Incorporating gardening into my lifestyle gives me a multitude of pleasures. Consciously thinking about aspects of the garden that please me helps to reinforce and focus my satisfaction. Certainly holding something of mine up for veneration is a source of pleasure, and if I can help to develop that object's venerability, all the better.

Chanticleer

2011-09-06T17:42:00.001-04:00

In July I had the opportunity to visit once again the renowned public garden in Philadelphia called Chanticleer. The temperatures were in the 100's, but the gardens still managed to wow me. Here are a few pictures and why they are of gardens that impressed me.

The above picture is of the ever changing garden in the old tennis court. I am particularly impressed by the composition of this very informal planting. It is easy to execute a formal design by laying things out in their rigid geometric configurations. A design such as the one above takes an entirely different talent. Not only is it a challenge to conceive but also to install, maintain and sustain season long interest.

While not a design or gardening feat this little setting speaks to Chanticleer's awareness of the spaces in their garden that are most comfortable for visitors to linger. This bamboo grove is shady and enveloping, just the place to linger. The chairs are perfect and the addition of the planter wonderfully reinforces the sense that this is living space.

Artificial waterfalls are a dime a dozen. I get tired of seeing them, but seldom do I get to see this careful composition not so much of the falls as of the water line and the pond edge beyond.

I was walking along the path next to the creek and noticed this pleasant albeit unremarkable vegetation. As I looked carefully I realized that what I mistook for a mix of natural growth and a few introduced species in this out-of-the-way spot was actually a complete construct. This attention to details amazed me. While the planting was not particularly glorious right now, I am sure throughout the season it has its high points. I was amazed at how naturally the composition went together, how much attention was paid to this otherwise innocuous location, and how successfully the diversity of cultivated plants were merged into a successful community of horticulturally interesting plants.

Chanticleer has a lot of money, and this image demonstrates that fact, in part. They tore a house down, for example, to construct the ruins garden featured in this photograph. Unlike other wealthy gardens, however, Chanticleer is more about gardening than conspicuous consumption. Sure the pool must have been hugely expensive but isn't it glorious, and the pool isn't (to my mind) the feature of this photograph. It is the wall hanging of succulents, and that is gardening skill, not a display of money.

Excitement

2011-08-05T09:33:00.001-04:00

I am marveling at my winter squash: C. pepo 'Sweet Dumpling' and C. maxima 'Uchiki Kuri'

I always get excited when plants in my garden do something dramatic, and right now my winter squash are growing wildly large. I marvel every day at their growth. They remind me of the enormous perennial, Giant Japanese Butterbur (Petasites japonicus 'Giganteus', although they aren't quite that huge.

I read an article about summer squash in my favorite garden magazine (Gardens Illustrated) and had to have some. In large part it was the images of the various colors and forms of the winter squash that made them so interesting, but now that I am actually growing them the vitality and sheer size of the plants are giving me a thrill. The fruits are going to be a bonus. The gardener featured in the article echoed my feelings when she said, "...it continues to amaze me how something so beautiful and bountiful can emerge from a single little seed."

These are not your typical Acorn and Butternut varieties. I was lucky to have found several of the more unusual selections mentioned in the article in the seed catalog Seeds of Change. It was already June, but I figured I still had the requisite ninety to one hundred growing days to get them to maturity. I bought two varieties, Uchiki Kuri and Sweet Dumpling. I noticed last night (4 August) fruits were already forming on Sweet Dumpling.

An important part of the joy of gardening is the excitement over the new and unexpected. To get that excitement I usually have to take some risks by delving into the unpredictable and unfamiliar. I may not always have the tidiest home garden, but I don't lack for joy.

2011-07-20T10:03:00.001-04:00

(Carex platyphylla)Sometimes plants have to find their own spots. Even though the parents of these silver sedge seedlings were planted very nearby, the offspring seem to find this spot preferable.

(Carex platyphylla) This silver sedge specimen sat in a sort of stasis for years before emerging this year as a thriving and vigorous plant.

(Melanthium virginicum) After a year of sulking my bunchflower finally did its thing.

One reason I would probably be a lousy landscaper is I don't find "installed" gardens very interesting. Now if a customer wanted me to install a garden and then massage, tweek, adjust, and edit it for several years I would thrive on that challenge. Many of my favorite plants did not reveal their suitabililty for my garden until after I put up with less than satisfactory performance for a while. On the other hand some plants generated great enthusiasm the first year or two only to eventually reveal themselves to be unsuitable.

I have written about this idea before, but what prompted this most recent revisit to the topic is two plants that are doing very well this year and that performed poorly previously.

The first example is Carex platyphylla, known commonly as silver sedge, broadleaf sedge, or broadleaf silver sedge. I "installed" about fifteen of these about seven or eight years ago. Some died, and the rest just limped along. Occasionally a little seedling would appear. Last year something must have clicked with them, because suddenly this year seedlings are growing together and individual plants are bright and vigorous. What is different? I have no idea, but I feel validated for having the patience to let these plants hang around in the garden until now.

The other example is more common. In fact, I suspected it might happen. Some plants just sulk the first year, and that is exactly what my Melanthium virginicum did. Commonly known as bunch flower, I became interested in this plant when I happened upon a big native stand of it while bicyling. It is a rare plant in Ohio where it is listed as "threatened". I later saw it listed in the Seneca Hill nursery catalog (responsibly seed grown I am sure) and couldn't resist the purchase. The first year they looked like they were going to die, and one did. The following year the survivor is glorious. That one year sulk is not uncommon, but a commercial landscaper would never have the opportunity to work with a plant like that. The customer would complain.

Gwinn, A Lifestyle Garden

2011-06-23T12:06:00.000-04:00

I recently spoke in Cleveland at the annual meeting of the Association of Professional Landscape Designers on the history of Country Place Era homes in the Cleveland area. The preparations for the talk reminded me of what an amazing creation William Mather's former home (Gwinn) was, and what a loss it seems to be now that it is no longer available to be seen and presumably is being gradually dismanteled.

My appreciation of Gwinn was enormously increased by Robin Karson's 1995 book The Muses of Gwinn in which she describes its fascinating history. Constructed in 1907, it survived longer than most all homes of its type. The gardens were considerably contracted as the property passed through generations of heirs, but the house and garden continued to inspire into the 21st century. Now this is what I call a lifestyle garden.

I had a chance to visit the garden at least three times before it was sold and will post the following pictures as a sort of memorial.

The house is set so close to Lake Erie that from the front it feels like it is part of the lake.

Although the lake front is lined with houses, viewers from Gwinn get the feeling they are the only ones on the water.

It is another world on the other side of the house where a comfortable sense of enclosure within the garden contrasts starkly with both the lake side and the world outside the garden walls.

Plants Grown for "Interest"

2011-05-02T16:25:00.001-04:00

Three years ago in 2008 my Cardiocrinum cordatum bloomed.

Here it is this spring (2011), two of the three surviving offshoots from the monocarpic bulb that died after flowering. Maybe this will be the year it blooms again, but I would guess I'll have to wait another year or two.

Several years ago Tom Yates at Lantern Court at Holden Arboretum gave me a start of Cardiocrinum cordatum. It has become one of my most enjoyable plants. I believe I have written about it before, but it is worthy of multiple mentions. First of all it is not the famous giant lily Cardiocrinum giganteum which is just a bit too tender for us here in north central Ohio, but just by being in the same genus should attract attention. Secondly Cardiocrinum cordatum emerges from the ground in the spring with bright red veined leaves (see above) such as might be depicted on plates, they are so colorful. The red quickly fades and the plant goes about growing for the summer unless it is a flowering year. They are monocarpic. That is they bloom once and die. In several years of growing them mine flowered once. After finishing I dug it up and replanted the offshoots of the dieing central bulb. Three survived, two of which are pictured above growing in 2011.

I have also attached an image of the flowering year; it was so exciting. So I guess I grow Cardiocrinum cordatum mostly as a sort of curiousity, but that term does not do the plant justice. It give me more pleasure than most of my plants because I am drawn to it to see what it is doing now. For me gardening is mostly about growing plants, and this one is definitely fun to grow.

The Blight of a Tidy Garden

2011-04-19T18:19:00.000-04:00

Here is my planting of Lamium maculatum doing very well without having the "ugly" autumn leaves raked out from around it in spite of looking like the planting of geranium below each spring.

Here is a geranium planting with the leaves left in place all winter and not removed in the spring "clean-up". Notice how the new growth is doing just fine emerging through the leaves, and think about how it will enjoy that nice mulch of leaves around its roots this summer after the autumn leaves have disappeared beneath the geranium's new growth.

Fastidious tidiness is a habit that can lead to dysfunctional garden cultural practices. The example that drives me particularly crazy is the habit of raking out all the autumn leaves from perennial plantings in the spring. It's almost never necessary, it damages the emerging perennial, it robs the perennial of a valuable mulch, and I never cease to be amazed at how many people insist on doing it!!!!!

A Hardy Clumping Bamboo

2011-03-10T08:43:00.003-05:00

Fargesia rufa in September four years after planting.

I was getting rather skeptical that any of the clumping bamboos were actually hardy here in zone 5. Its not that I made a massive survey of them, but the cost of four or five failures over the years stung enough to make me wary. When my own organization (Kingwood Center) offered Fargesia rufa tradmarked with the name Green Panda,I had to try again. That was in 2006. The plant has survived in my garden for five winters, so I guess I have to call it hardy, although we have not had the minus fifteen or minus twenty degrees Fahrenheit we get periodically. It is difficult both mentally and financially to keep trying new and different things in the garden. Not only are the new plants more expensive than most, but their failure rate is much higher as well. Whadareyagunnado.

German Goat's Beards

2011-02-17T10:55:00.009-05:00

I enjoyed the sparse nature of this small garden in Breege with its imposingly large goat's beard.

A university public garden in Greifswald had this giant clump of Aruncus dioicus on its campus.

The largest stand of goat's beard I recall was at this former estate which is now a park in Putbus. How old is this?

I took two trips to Germany twenty-eight years apart, and curiously one of the common impressions I had from both trips was of seeing a lot of enormous clumps of Aruncus dioicus (goat's beard). I see the plant with some degree of regularity in the U.S. but not like in Germany. I wish I corresponded with a German gardener who I could ask, "Hey, what is it with the Aruncus dioicus?" My impression is that it is very popular, often an integral part of garden designs and is often preserved for what must be decades judging by the size of some of the clumps I have seen. I like the plant; I have been growing it at my house for years, but I don't think I will live long enough to build a stand of goat's beard like a couple of those pictured above.

More of the Karl Foerster Garden

2011-01-20T09:18:00.004-05:00

rhythm

venerable

color

impressive stands

organization

There seems to be interest in my posting more images of Karl Foerster's garden that I visited last summer in Potsdam, Germany. I decided to think about why I liked the garden so much and to post images that represented some of those reasons. I hit upon organization, impressive stands, color, venerability, and rhythm as a few that could be readily illustrated. The five images are posted above.

Community Building - Progress Report

2010-12-20T15:52:00.008-05:00

An instant community from a spring plug planting

Eupatorium coelestinum sorting itself out from the mix to form a nice stand

Aster cordifolius 'Avondale' looking especially blue and floriferous in the late fall

As many of my previous entries have indicated I am working in my garden to better understand the practice of developing more-or-less self-sustaining plant communities as gardens. I have what I call my meadow that is several years old now and fully planted, but I continue to introduce new things, especially when I can insert ornamental interest into an otherwise down time of year. I have another similar garden in which I have a very minimal palate of plants on about half of the designated site. I am watching how these self-seed and interact with each other while experimenting with various weed control techniques. Weeds seem to be the biggest impediment to success.

Today I want to report on my newest efforts. In the spring of 2010 I purchased flats of plugs of five species of shade growing native perennials that I thought might get along in an attractive self-sustaining community. (Aster cordifolius 'Avondale', Eupatorium coelestinum, Solidago caesia, Stylophorum diphyllum and Polemonium reptans) I chose three seemingly similar shady locations and planted a mix of the five selections in each spot. After one growing season the plants' response to each of the three sites was vastly different, which is what I regularly find. It is a bit early to make conclusions, but one of the three sites grew some excellent stands of most of the five selections. The three images show a collective image of the aster, eupatorium and solidago growing nicely together but perhaps looking a bit rough. The other two images are of particularly nice stands of the aster and the eupatorium considering they are only one growing season from relatively neglected, newly planted plugs.

I will monitor to see if the polemonium, the weakest performer, does better next year; whether one or more of the selections tends to dominate (my bet is on the eupatorium); and whether the other two sites improve or have elements of the planting die out. Of course, I am especially eager to see if they can dominate the weeds and look good while doing it.

Clothes Make the Gardener (Update)

2010-12-02T14:38:00.004-05:00

On December 4th in 2008 I posted a bit on clothing for gardening and how integral it can be for making gardening a pleasurable experience. I described my favorite inclement weather clothing while asserting that the proper clothing can make gardening fun not only in spite of but sometimes even because of nasty weather.

I have a couple of new favorites. I am aware of how silly this may seem to some, but these cloths really do make an enormous difference. My first new favorite is a case in point. They are lightly insulated Gore-Tex bib overalls. They offer warmth in all but the coldest weather while not being too hot in temperatures as high as the upper 50s, but what I like the most about these overalls is that they are waterproof, and they breath. I can get down on my knees on cold wet ground and stay dry and warm. That is invaluable. They are perfect for late bulb plantings, cutting back dormant perennials in the fall or spring, cutting firewood in the winter, or any of the innumerable garden and yard jobs that involve getting down on your knees on cold and/or wet ground. I have tried rain pants, knee pads,and Carhartt overalls, but nothing is as satisfactory as these for protecting against cold wetness. I bought them from Cabela's where they are marketed for hunters.

My other new favorite is a brand-name boot called Muck Boots. In my previous log I described my L.L. Bean rubber bottomed leather topped boots as my favorite. Their shortcomings were their tendency to become clammy with prolonged wear and the tedious process of lacing and unlacing to put them on and take them off. The Muck Boots do everything the insulated Bean boots do and they slip on and off easily while not making your feet clammy. They help keep my wife happy too by minimizing the dirt I track in by making it easy for me to take them off before coming in. I used to have generic high topped rubber boots styled after the famous Wellington brand. They were satisfactory for warm weather but not the cold, and they were less comfortable. Muck Boots can be purchased directly from www.MuckBoots.com.

Good work cloths are like having just the right tool for the job.

November

2010-11-19T09:54:00.006-05:00

Hardy cyclamen (Cyclamen hederifolium) offers beautiful new leaves for me to admire as I do my November gardening.

Bright yellow clumps of naturalized asparagus (Asparagus officinalis) pop out of the November landscape, offering interesting subjects for 60 mph botanizing.

Where I live in Ohio, November is the month we realize fall is over and the bleakness of winter is upon us. There are, however, a few features of the landscape that belie that verdict. One of my previous blogs at about this time of year featured the flowers of our native witchhazel (Hamamelis virginiana), another the late fall color of yellow root (Xanthorhiza simplicissima). I have noticed that dogbane (Apocynum cannabinum) stands out in early November with its bright yellow fall color. Of course, callery pear (Pyrus calleryana) is well known for its late fall color, and as I drive around town in mid November I am reminded how overused that tree is. Asparagus naturalizes in fence rows and can be easily spotted in November because of its bright yellow fall color and fine texture. These plants pop out of the otherwise bare November landscape. It makes for some fun "reading" of the landscape and gratifying features in my garden to greet me as I try to get as much done in the garden as possible before winter really does close things down.

More on Self Sowing

2010-11-01T08:14:00.006-04:00

Largeflower Fameflower (Phemeranthus calycinus syn. Talinum calycinus)

In my last blog I described the difficulty in making any sort of composition out of a garden of directly sown seeds. The distribution of plants is so randomized the garden lacks interest in spite of abundant color. Another approach I have used is to let only one or two selections self sow in an otherwise more or less fixed garden. I had some nice success with the mullein Verbascum olympicum which, because it is a biennial, is pretty much an obligatory self sower. The downside to Verbascum olympicum is that it is so big it buries smaller plants. I also had success with the common horticultural columbine (Aquilegia) which is a perennial but is both prolific enough to make a sort of light wash over a garden by filling in bare spots and small enough not to be intrusive.

My most recent example of a self sowing plant freely distributing itself over my garden to good affect is largeflower fameflower (Phemeranthus calycinus, syn. Talinum calycinus). It is the sole survivor of a group of hardy succulents I tried in my newest rock garden. I like the way it adds a wash of color over the garden while not pushing other plants aside. If it becomes too thick it is very easy to remove.

Gardens of Annuals Sown Directly

2010-09-30T10:50:00.006-04:00

A pre-packaged mix of annuals, with a few additions. It's colorful but doesn't have much character.

I inadvertently overplanted the grass (How was I to know how much seed was too much?)but the Chinese Forget-me-not managed to nicely peak through.

I love this California Bluebell for its intense blue color, persistent bloom and tolerance of some very dry conditions.

I am interested in working more and more with plant systems in which natural forces and I work together to determine the nature of the garden. This desire of mine is exemplified by the perennials in what I call my meadow garden (see my 9/24/09 posting). Now I am intrigued by the idea of directly sowing annuals to achieve a naturalistic looking plant display that is also economical, has a minimal energy requirement, and represents this balance between natural forces and my will that I mentioned above. Perhaps I am revisiting the well known "meadow-in-a-can" phenomenon that made a splash about twenty years ago and is still available today, but I like to think I am looking at it a bit differently. The "meadow-in-a-can" provides something much like the top picture. It's a festival of color. There is no sense of composition or even a sense of the beauty of drifts and undulating masses we see in nature as plants distribute themselves. It's like the plants have been homogenized. Perhaps over time, if they continued to come back year after year, they would eventually make a more interesting distribution.

While waiting to see what that planting will evolve into (with some guidance by me) I am also experimenting with other plants and their combinations. The second picture down is of a grass, Ruby Silk,(Agrostis tef) and a non grass or, in prairie planting parlance, a forb, Chinese Forget-me-not (Cynoglossum amabile). Remembering how forbs so attractively peak through a backdrop of grasses, I tried a couple of other direct sow gardens with a mix of grasses and showy flowering plants. I vastly overestimated how much Agrostis tef I needed and vastly underestimated in the other garden how much Quaking Grass was needed. With the one garden the grass totally dominated the planting. The other one was sparse indeed although it did expose me to a very attractive and potentially useful annual pictured above, California Bluebell (Phacelia campanularia).

Obviously I have a lot to learn, but true to the lifestyle garden theme, its the process that's the most gratifying.

Lessons of European Allotment Gardens

2010-09-13T08:22:00.009-04:00

Little cities of tidy garden plots offer Germans an opportunity to enjoy the garden lifestyle.

A tiny vignette of a German Schrebergarten suggests the pleasures of times spent in their garden allotments.

This garden displays the mix of vegetables and ornamentals that tend to define these German allotment gardens.

My trip to Germany this summer renewed my fascination with what is typically called a Schrebergarten. Associations of tiny garden plots with their accompanying tiny buildings (Kleingartenvereine) offer Germans without land the opportunity to enjoy the garden lifestyle. Here in the U.S. where ample suburban lots offer millions of people the opportunity to enjoy the pleasures of organizing recreational time around their garden it seems ironic that so relatively few take advantage of the opportunity. While in Germany where these opportunities are far rarer the enthusiasm for gardening seems far greater. One needs only to walk by these little cities of garden plots to see the enthusiasm for them. Apparently this phenomenon extends beyond Germany. An interesting article in issue 164 of the BBC publication, Gardens Illustrated , profiles the joys of one family and their allotment garden in Denmark under the title "A Taste of the Good Life." They begin the article with the following: "Do you want a refuge full of home-grown fruit, vegetables and drifts of bright flowers all summer? One Danish family show(s) that you can have all this in an allotment-sized space." Perhaps when something is rare or limited it is more cherished.

The Karl Foerster Garden

2010-08-23T16:04:00.008-04:00

For inspiration that directly applies to the lifestyle garden that this blog advocates there is nothing better than visiting a great private garden. On July sixth of this year I was lucky enough to visit the garden of the famous Karl Foerster in Potsdam, Germany. Although it is the historic garden that he laid out at his home it is now open to the public. The garden is the size of a slightly larger than average suburban lot but is filled entirely with what they describe as a strictly symmetrical layout. The plantings are anything but symmetrical. How many of us have the forethought to give our gardens the structure they need? I know I don't. The Foerster garden is a livable garden. Throughout are places to stroll, to sit, to admire, and to contemplate. I took 160 photographs and conjured up my best German to tell a gardener working there how much I admired and enjoyed their work. I told her that this garden made my trip worthwhile. It was a wonderful experience that I hope to refer back to often on this blog. The three above images can't begin to tell the whole story, but they are a few of the most photogenic and represent a good start. All three are of the sunken garden at the front of the house.

Consequences of Provincialism

2010-07-21T09:29:00.005-04:00

Ramonda myconi at Karl Foerster Garden, Potsdam

Ramonda myconi at Ernst-Moritz-Arndt-Universität, Greifswald

Ramonda myconi at Berlin Botanischer Garten

Ramonda myconi at Botanischer Garten der Universität Potsdam

A couple of blogs ago I proudly mentioned my success at growing Ramonda myconi, a hardy member of the African violet family (Gesneriaceae). I imagined this Ramonda to be a very rare thing seldom seen in gardens, because I had never seen it in gardens. I visited Germany a couple of weeks ago where I saw four rock gardens. Each and every one was growing Ramonda myconi (although they were, alas, no longer in bloom). It is so easy to become provincial! But then that is one of the main reasons I wanted to take that trip. A person needs to get out into the world every now and then. I hope it isn't another twenty-nine years between my trips to Europe.

An Ornamental Grape of Special Note

2010-06-18T15:42:00.010-04:00

I don't want to turn this blog into a series of jags about the fabulous attributes of this plant or that. That story has its place, but for the theme of this blog a worthy plant profile should say more than how good it looks. Vitis coignetiae(crimson glory vine). Let's call it Vitis coignetiae and pronounce that French looking word any damn way we please. I most recently heard this plant being revered in an podcasted interview with the famous English gardener Beth Chatto. I was pleased to be able to think to myself, ah yes, I know it and grow it. I won't try to wax sentimental about its attributes except to say that its leaves are fascinating in their color, texture, and positioning. The vine has the ability to add an allure to places it is grown. But don't plan on eating the grapes. I first remember seeing it at an outdoor restaurant, and I wish I remembered where, because when I saw it I knew I had to some day grow it for myself. I wasn't sure about it's hardines, so when my first planting died I suspected hardiness as the problem. Fortunately the second try worked. Vines, especially large vines such as this one, can't be grown to their best advantage just anywhere as my planting of it testifies, yet I am glad I have it in spite of its less than inspired setting. Even when it is not at its "best advantage", it can grace its site. Some plants are so worthy that they need to be in the inventory of plants the gardener is not only aware of but knows how to use and grow. I wanted to know how to use Vitis coignetiae , so I had to grow it, as best I could. I think my kind of gardener can't be satisfied simply admiring plants, we have to find some way of growing them.

Pleasure From the Substantial and the Tiny

2010-05-25T16:30:00.011-04:00

I have realized particular gratification this spring from two very different sorts of plantings. One is large and defines space; the other is one tiny plant in a crevice, but I get a real kick out of both of them.

The first is a planting of willow that I started about ten years ago. A creek that is a boundary of my property seemed a perfect place to block the view of the neighbors and to create a beautiful grove of trees. The willows were about as cheap a planting as could be had. At Kingwood Center where I work we annually cut back Salix alba 'Britzensis' to the ground to allow those beautiful coral colored shoots to grow back up shrub sized. I gathered up the harvest and stuck them in the wet ground hoping they would root. Over several years of mixed successes I eventually established a substantial grove of trees, the full extent of which I did not capture in the above image.

The other planting that brought me special pleasure this spring caught my attention with its lone flower on a lone plant of Ramonda myconi. I bought it three years ago at a local North American Rock Garden Society meeting from Wrightman Alpine Nursery. Of seven different species I bought that day it is one of only two that are still with me. I shouldn't expect to grow "alpines" in my hot Ohio garden, but I do expect to grow rock garden plants. Drainage seems to be the key and the crevice that my ramonda was lucky enough to be planted into seemed to do the trick. The fact that it took three years to put out its first flower, that I was able to find suitable exposure and soil for it, and that it is the only hardy gesneriad that I have ever come across all added up to considerable satisfaction on my part.

Garden Centers

2010-05-06T08:56:00.004-04:00

Yesterday I led my eleventh annual bus trip from Kingwood. We load up 46 people and spend the day plant shopping. It's lots of fun although anything that goes wrong falls on me, so I worry. We have probably visited over thirty different places that sell plants over the years. and it has been an interesting study in what appeals to the group and to me. It isn't feasible for me to visit each site before the trip, so I rely heavily on word of mouth, Internet, and now my experience. Unfortunately some stinkers can sneak in. One year a gardener who I respect highly recommended a water garden nursery. Always ready to find a diamond in the rough I directed the poor bus driver down a winding dirt road to the almost abandoned site. Everyone was polite and the owner valiantly offered up a paltry assortment of pathetic looking plants. On this year's trip our last stop was a place that touted their fine wines and designer purses. Unfortunately their garden center business seemed to be a relic. Fortunately the other four garden centers we visited were good.

Even more difficult is finding a garden center that offers a distinctive line of plants. Often times the biggest and most successful garden centers are almost indistinguishable from one another. The same plants in over sized and over priced containers can be found in all of them. I like the garden centers that cater to the plantsman more than the instant gratification seeker.

Some of my favorites over the years have been:
Bluestone Nursery the mail order nursery north east of Cleveland that allows you on site access to their full catalog of plants
Baker's Acres east of Columbus loaded with a wonderful range of plants
Dave Dannaher's Nursery near Columbus, a grafting enthusiast who has more grafted woody curiosities than he knows what to do with (by appointment)
Mulberry Creek Herb Farm near Sandusky, a tiny family run nursery specializing in miniature plants and herbs
Meadow View Growers a large upscale garden center near Dayton that also caters to people looking for the different and the unusual.

Other garden centers that were good but not necessarily favorites were Lowes (no, not that Lowes) Greenhouse and Florist Shop in Chagrin Falls, Cahoon's in Westlake, and Corso's Flower and Garden Center near Sandusky.

Then there are the places that are just fun to visit even if their offerings are a bit hit and miss. I guess Daisy Hill Greenhouse in Hunting Valley near Cleveland is the most fun. I just wish they labeled their plants or at least knew what their more unusual plants were.

Finally the best treat is when wholesale nurseries let us in to shop. I won't mention any names. They probably would prefer no one knew they ever did that.

I Remember Jeep (and Anemone nemorosa 'Bracteata Pleniflora')

2010-04-22T16:18:00.009-04:00

The above clump of Cardamine trifolia represents seven years of growth.

I planted three Anemone nemorosa 'bracteata pleniflora eight years ago. Here they are today. Now that is slow! Click on the picture to get a better view of the amazing flowers.

Although I am not a particularly organized person I have had considerable enjoyment from records I kept of the plants I acquired in the twelve years I have been gardening at my current home. I refer back to those records on a regular basis for many reasons. For example, I photographed a clump of Cardamine trifolia this spring that I seem to have had forever, and yet it is still a smallish clump. A quick search found that I bought it from the now defunct version of Heronswood Nursery seven years ago, so look at the picture and judge for yourself, but I think that is one slow growing groundcover! Another photograph this spring evoked a similar curiosity. My Anemone nemorosa 'Brachteata Pleniflora' (which I coincidentally also bought from Heronswood)has finally emerged from the status of a tiny little whisper of plants to an actual clump (see image above). That bit of progress took eight years.

I also enjoy reminiscing over plants that are no longer with me because they didn't survive(it's a humiliatingly large number), or because I had to frantically eradicate them (e.g. Campanula punctata, Salvia forskaohlei, and Knautia macedonica come to mind), because they were taking over the garden. It is also interesting to see the relative success I have had with various nurseries. I recently observed, for example, that while I have acquired some particularly unusual and successful plants from one specialty nursery, which is famous for letting you figure out for yourself where their plants will grow, a large majority of the plants I bought from them did not make it. I decided that their already high cost was too high when the attrition rate is factored in. I have also found the records to be particularly satisfying in reminding me of those special plants that have been given to me and have found a suitable home in my garden. I like to remember the people and the friendship when I think of their plants. Sometimes it is years before I realize I want to buy more of a particularly successful plant, so it is useful to know where I bought them originally, and when I lose the labels I have at least a fighting chance of figuring out what the full name of the now unidentified plants are. Record keeping may be a bore, but these records of mine have expanded my gardening pleasure and success significantly.

Remembering Belly Plants

2010-04-09T14:38:00.010-04:00

Primula marginata

Corydalis solida 'Blushing Girl'

Diphyllea sinensis

Deinanthe caerulea

Large sweeps of bulbs and big perennial borders are impressive and something to be proud of if you created them yourself, but there is a special place in my sense of satisfaction for the many small and demure plants that reward looking closely especially in intimate spaces. This spring my thrill for the understated is with a new (for me)primrose, Primula marginata . It bloomed for the first time recently in my rock wall. The color, the survival of a new plant, the successful colonization of my rock wall, and the fact that it was a new species for me all contributed to my pleasure, in addition to its beauty. Last year it was Corydalis solida 'Blushing Girl' and the fruit of Diphylleia sinensis, the year before I recall Deinanthe caerulea.

I am reminded of the enthusiasm my fellow botany students and I had on field trips for what we called belly plants, those plants that were so small we had to get on our bellies to enjoy them. These garden plants aren't tiny like belly plants, but they certainly evoke a similar sort of appreciation.

Secret Pleasures

2010-03-24T09:30:00.004-04:00

A sense of humor is essential to the lifestyle garden and I got a good laugh out of the above pictured Galanthus (snow drops). I had long ago lost track of the name and all memory of planting this little patch of snow drops next to my driveway, but I was looking at them this spring and was struck by how the flowers seemed strangely fat. Upon closer inspection I discovered they were doubles. Of course, you can't tell the flowers are doubles unless you turn them upside down. I found this all both gratifying and mildly humorous. It is like a private little secret of mine that I can enjoy any time I want to tip up one of the flowers, and they really are beautiful if I take the time to look.

These Modest Flowers are Eagerly Awaited

2010-03-11T15:46:00.007-05:00

Some Brits seem to be over the top for snowdrops (Galanthus). They are certainly one of the most welcome of plants to see bloom but...

Winter aconite (Eranthis hyemalis)is cheap, reliable and a spot of pleasure in an otherwise bleak landscape.

Witch-hazel varieties like this one (Arnold Promise) deliver on the promise of something cheerful to look at early in the spring warm-up.

Winter finally broke. The snow hasn't all melted yet, but it is on the run, and my thermometer says 70 degrees, yippee. People seem to come out of the woodwork on these first warm days of spring and walk around the public garden I work for (Kingwood Center), presumably expecting the landscape to be transformed. I suppose they are disappointed to find the duck feeding with the kids is inhibited by the ice that still covers about 90% of the pond, and there is precious little sign of spring in the gardens. There are a few things blooming and they are the topic of my lifestyle garden homily for today. These first few warm days of March are hugely important to people's spirits. Give yourself a reward on these sorts of days by having those handful of super-early bloomers in your yard like the three pictured above. They may not compare to what is to come, but they are probably some of the most appreciated flowers in the garden.

Enduring Snow

2010-03-01T17:34:00.007-05:00

Its been a long winter (albiet pretty as the above image of my driveway suggests). I can't recall having such a long period of continuous snow cover; and its not just some snow; its been mostly a foot or more. I lost patience a few of weeks ago and went out to a grove of young black locusts that I like to call my "coppice" in order to do some "forest management." This is how I have fun when I'm not digging in the dirt. Just walking around in the deep snow was about as much exercise as I could manage. I couldn't even bring a wagon to haul anything away. I like to stay active in the garden and landscape throughout the year. Typically there are plenty of things to do in the winter that are productive and that will reduce the work load in the growing season. I have to admit to being largely thwarted this winter. Today is March second and the snow is only ever so gradually melting. Instead of borrowing a log splitter I have been splitting my wood by hand, since I had the time, the energy and the glorious luxury of a barn to work in.

Common Cowslip

2010-02-05T14:37:00.004-05:00

Late winter is the time for ordering new plants, and I have recently placed a flurry of new orders, each of which I am very excited about, of course. I also plan to order several primroses but haven't yet. Several years ago Tom Buchter moved to Ohio and the Holden Arboretum (he has since moved on)and quipped that he looked forward to growing lots of primroses now that he was in Ohio. Ever since, I have been wondering why I didn't grow more. Over the last few years I have been acquiring several very satisfying species and varieties of primrose including what seems to be generally regarded as "that common old cowslip" (Primula veris). I once blogged about the joys of esoterica in plants. Today its the joys of the "taken for granted" or the perceived mundane. As I have been casting about to see where I might pick up a few good primrose candidates I have been looking to expand my successful planting of cowslip. While I am not challenged to find a source, I am surprised at how seldom it is offered for sale given its beauty, versatility and reliability. I'm almost embarrassed by how much I relish the plant, but only almost. Come on, its a great plant, and actually it is not very widely used. Why isn't there more enthusiasm for it?

Built for Outdoor Living

2010-01-22T10:11:00.005-05:00

We visited Beaufort, South Carolina shortly before Thanksgiving and everywhere we went people commented on how wonderful the weather was and how great it was to live in the South. (Perhaps they were playing to my Midwest accent.)At any rate, we had fun walking around town and looking at some fabulous old homes, all built with outdoor living in mind. For example, the front porches on the house pictured above anticipated people spending a lot of quality time escaping the heat of the house during the summer and, in this particular case, catching cool breezes from the bay. Air conditioning has changed our connection with the outdoors. It is easy to retreat into an air conditioned home and forget completely about the weather and the outdoors in general. I think that causes us to miss something important in life. Sure, escape uncomfortable weather when you can, but come back out every now and then to sit in some favorite retreat on the porch overlooking the garden, or sit in a spot with the garden all around you like the bottom picture. Part of the lifestyle garden is keeping in touch with nature and you can't do that holed up with air conditioning. Those front porches evoke romantic nostalgia for a reason. They were and continue to be great places to spend time.

Your Friend the Potato

2009-12-11T09:13:00.006-05:00

Internal brown spots on Elba potato

I find potatoes to be one of the most gratifying of the annual food crops to grow. I know they can be purchased very inexpensively at the grocery store, but I do enjoy the bounty just the same.(And did you read what Michael Pollan said about pesticide usage on Idaho potatoes?) There is something especially satisfying about sinking a spade into the soil and unearthing a clump of potatoes. I also like the fact that I can store them. When I have grown crops with short shelf-lives like lettuce the eating opportunities came and went too fast, especially for those unnamed members of the household who found it more convenient to buy lettuce at the grocery store than to walk out into the garden and cut some. Aaarg.

One of the varieties of potatoes I have grown for the last two years is Elba. They are quite satisfactory, but they do have the curious propensity for brown spots in the middle of the largest of the tubers. (see picture above) Apparently not much is known about why this occurs, although most seem to think it is a physiological response to some sort of environmental stress. Anyway, it hasn't bothered me particularly. The spots are easy to cut out, and while they are said to reduce shelf-life I just use the largest potatoes first. They are the only ones with the spots.

I will be taking at least a year off from growing potatoes. 2009 was a horrific year for late blight. Fortunately I only had a small percentage of my crop damaged, but in order to avoid a major crop failure next year I think I will get out of potato growing for a while. I have not been very careful about removing all potential sources of inoculum; I don't want to spray; and I don't have a fresh bed available to rotate them into. Not to worry, I won't be lacking for other things to grow.

Why Not Cover Crops?

2009-11-24T08:03:00.008-05:00

Above and below: Oats photographed on 23 November and sown in mid September as a cover crop

Cover crops seem to be one of those things that are supposed to not simply be a good practice but also a noble and wholesome one; the sort of thing that good "stewards of the land" would always do. But how often do you actually see it done? I almost never see cover crops. There is no shortage of information on the benefits of cover crops, so there is no need to go into that here. This is a blog about the gardening life style, so I am more curious about why such a highly regarded practice seems to be so seldom followed, at least in the home and public gardens I have occasion to see. Perhaps there is rarely the sense that a particular garden is open and unused for the necessary four or more weeks at the end of the growing season before cold weather shuts down the cover crop’s growth. Here at Kingwood, for example, after the annuals are removed from the seasonal display beds we typically plant tulips, alliums, or pansies in the fall. Home vegetable gardens are likely candidates, but perhaps people don’t like the idea of buying seed for something they are not going to harvest. I have typically mulched my open vegetable gardens for the winter, but cover crops might be better weed suppressants, less time consuming, and less expensive while still providing a boost to organic matter. I think cover crops are sufficiently rare that most people are reluctant to try something so unfamiliar.

I have to admit, until this fall when I planted the oats pictured above, I had very minimal first-hand experience with cover crops. This planting is sort of an anomaly. The beds had been planted in bearded iris, but to reduce maintenance we removed the iris and plan to direct sow annuals in the spring. Rather than let the soil sit empty and uncovered for the winter I planted the oats. I am gratified by the results so far and will look for more opportunities to use cover crops, especially in the vegetable garden.

Confessions of a Labeler

2009-11-04T08:31:00.010-05:00

I have met many good gardeners who eschew labeling their plants. I think it is a matter of pride, although I am not sure whether it is pride in their memory or pride in not allowing labels to defile their garden's aesthetics. For my part I label like an Alzheimer's patient. One of my sister's once asked me why I couldn't just enjoy my plants for what they are without fixating on the names. The names of plants are so integral to my use and understanding of them I didn't know how to reply; I was dumbfounded. Today I read from one of my favorite garden columnists (Frank Ronan) that when rearranging a garden, "...whether the plant survives is infinitely less important than the removal of a vexation. We do not garden to be annoyed." I apply the same idea to plant labels. I am greatly vexed by looking at a plant in my garden and not knowing its name. I need to label, and with any luck the gentian pictured above will soon grow over the label so only I will know and be reassured that the name is somewhere to be found.

Gardeners in the Wild

2009-10-28T14:41:00.010-04:00

Deschampsia flexuosa (common hairgrass) at Dolly Sods in West Virginia

Deschampsia flexuosa (common hairgrass growing at my house

I love to visit plants in their native habitat, especially plants I am growing or that I might be inspired to grow. The topmost picture is of a grass called Deschampsia flexuosa (common hairgrass)growing in its native habitat at Dolly Sods in West Virginia. As a gardener I was thrilled to see this infrequently used ornamental grass growing in the wild, because I have been using it in my garden (as seen in the bottom picture). Being a fledgling rock gardener I also admired this rockery and thought how I might be able to recreate something inspired by it in my own garden. When I saw this modest little clump of Deschampsia flexuosa growing in the rockery I also thought I ought to try using it more subtly than my mass planting, particularly in a rockery, which I just happen to have in development. I also took a bunch of pictures of other cool plants at Dolly Sods that I am keeping in the back of my mind as potential garden plants.

Ongoing Lessons in Gardening

2009-10-12T09:32:00.007-04:00

A cheddar pink in its glory.

The same cheddar pink under attack.

Another system of gardening.

Look at the middle picture of the my beautiful mass of cheddar pink being engulfed in weeds that are nearly impossible to remove. One might say that the lesson I should learn is to keep up with my edging or to keep this vulnerable plant isolated. But the answer to what I did wrong is dependent upon the system of gardening that I chose to use. This is something that is difficult to explain to the many gardeners who call us at Kingwood Center with questions of what they should do differently following failures, especially after enjoying a few years of success such as I had (see top picture).

Garden decisions follow from the system of gardening we choose. This is a simple fact overlooked by many gardeners such as those who want the roses that also happen to be black spot susceptible, or want lovely apples, or want some common insect's favorite food but don't want to spray or won't learn to spray properly.

Some garden systems avoid the problem I had by making every plant in the garden an isolated specimen (see bottom picture) or by regularly scheduled maintenance techniques such as edging. Having rejected both of those approaches in my own garden I am obliged, therefore to know more about how plants in close proximity interact with each other. This seems to me to be a more interesting approach in which gardens are orchestrated intertwining masses of vegetation. Clearly my plant placement decision was not consistent with my choice of gardening system. So my lesson could be to change my system(such as by edging or changing the garden lay-out), but a better lesson for me is to do a better job with my system by finding more compatible neighboring plants for this cheddar pink.

Another Show in the Sequence

2009-09-24T14:28:00.008-04:00

The grasses provide a seasonal show in September.

The white purple coneflower and Liatris offer up a beautiful show in July.

The meadow is especially nice in June with these oriental poppies and assorted other flowers.

I continue my work with my "meadow", or as I read in Peter Thompson's book, The Self-Sustaining Garden, my matrix garden. While trying to construct this self-sustaining planting, the aesthetics have not been forgotten. I am conscious of having a series of big seasonal shows. After the early spring daffodils comes the June show of blood-red oriental poppies and company, then in July the garden features white purple coneflower with Liatris. Now that a grass (Calamagrostis brachytrica)I planted last year has matured I have a show in September that precedes the fall color show in which the Amsonia hubrichtii is magnificent. I need to bolster the daffodil show and add something more for August. I have a lot of Crocosmia 'Lucifer' that I need to move. Perhaps it will help the late summer show and fit into the community.

Heroin Chic in the Garden

2009-09-23T10:07:00.006-04:00

Now here is something different for the garden - the parasitic look. Of course there are many fascinating parasitic plants that would be kind of fun to have in the garden, but they would be tough to grow. The above picture of Colchicum (autumn crocus) at Kingwood Center sending up their leafless flowers in the shade always remind me of parasitic plants. Could this be a step toward reviving the heroin chic motif but this time in the garden?

Harvesting Mixed Feelings

2009-09-08T11:23:00.004-04:00

Around the country, apparently in response to economic hard times, a record number of people have grown fruits and vegetables this year. I wonder how their harvests have been. Because in spite of my many years of experience, I am still frustrated by my failure to make satisfactory use of what I grow. I have concluded that unless I am committed to a concerted effort to can, freeze, or otherwise preserve. I will never do more than amuse myself with small bits of food now and then. For example I grew a row of beets this year and we ate beets four or five times. We could have eaten beets every day for months. I don't want to pickle or otherwise process them, so most of the beets are going to go to waste. The same is true for the green beans I grew. One seed packet of beans or beets is enough to provide fresh produce to twenty people! I am processing cherry tomatoes from my eight plants while the two full size tomatoes are largely going to waste. I bought a machine to dry the tomatoes and have amassed enough dried tomatoes to make all my friends and family hide from my anticipated dried tomato largess. Raspberries are great. I eat them with my cereal every morning like I did with blueberries before them. My five Asian pears from my young but precocious trees were delicious, but what do I do when that number is two hundred and five along with my existing Bartlet pears? Potatoes are satisfactory because they can be stored. I can provide home grown potatoes for most of the year. I am about to harvest about a bushel of carrots from another individual seed packet. What am I going to do with all of those?

Obviously I am growing some of the wrong things and/or growing them in too large of a quantity, but I never seem to learn. I need to hone in on the produce that suits my lifestyle and just forget about the other things. Spring is when that resolution goes out the window. Oh! let's try Brussels sprouts this year, and Lima beans; how about kale; I've never grown that!

More on Self-Seeding

2009-08-28T09:57:00.004-04:00

I can't seem to stop being fascinated with plants in my garden that are seeding themselves around. I have already written in this blog about Cyclamen purpurascens and Gillenia trifoliata self-seeding to my delight. Now I am infatuated with my display of Cimicifuga japonica pictured above from my front yard making a very gratifying display. I wish I could have captured the full display in a good image. I guess one of the reasons it is so gratifying is that the show is a better one than I would have constructed myself, and it was a lot less expensive. It is also fascinating to see which plants find which garden settings so much to their liking that they seed themselves in. Of course, there is the down side to this self-seeding. I had to commit genocide on my Salvia forskaohlei a few years ago to get control of its spread throughout the garden. Yesterday I found one still lurking in an overlooked corner. I ripped it out. More recently I had to begin the process of removing all my Knautia macedonica because they were insinuating themselves into far too much of my garden. Perhaps in a wilder garden the aforementioned Salvia and Knautia would not be considered offensive.

Exciting Seedlings

2009-08-17T08:38:00.009-04:00

Recently discovered seedling of Cyclamen purpurascens

One of the above seedling's likely parents in August toward the end of its blooming cycle.

This is Cyclamen hederafolium that E.A. Bowles wrote about in the quote below. It has the weird habit of blooming in late summer and putting out leaves in the fall.

There is something particularly gratifying about a desirable plant really settling in and making itself at home in my garden, and what could be more domestic than raising a family. This gratification is especially noteworthy when a plant that is a bit of a challenge to grow not only persists in my garden but also puts out a few seedlings. I discovered the above pictured seedling of Cyclamen purpurascens recently about thirty feet from my little planting of the parent plants. A likely parent, also pictured above, has been in my garden for about seven years and it and its companions are growing at a glacial pace. (In light of global warming we may have to change that expression.) So, given the slow growth of the parents the appearance of a few seedlings here and there was even more satisfying than usual.

A quote that caught my imagination about hardy cyclamens was from E.A. Bowles in his book My Garden in Autumn and Winter. In speaking of what we now call Cyclamen hederifolium he says, "You get as good value year in and year out from Cyclamen neapolitanum as from any one plant I can recall, and I think it must be one of the most long-lived of all that are not trees. There is one immense old root here, that would not go into the crown of my hat, and my dear old mother used to tell me she brought it from Atkins' garden at Painswick soon after her marriage, and it is now many years since my parents celebrated their golden wedding. Sixty years is a long life for any one plant, for C. neapolitanum does not renew itself annually as most bulbous plants do, but just grows a little wider from season to season and the older and larger it grows the more vigorous it gets, and the greater number of flowers it produces."

What are the chances one of my children will carry-on the cultivation of my cylamen? Ummm.

Texture and the Color Green

2009-07-22T15:17:00.002-04:00

Green Composition

Paeonia veitchii in bloom

One of my most satisfying garden vignettes is pictured above. I love the textural combination of leaves, the various shades of green and the weed excluding, self sustaining massing of foliage. In the background is a Kirengeshoma; over to the left is Glaucidium; in the foreground and a little bit chlorotic is Primula kisoana; then on the right is a woodland peony, Paeonia veitchii. A bit of Epimedium is apparent and the thin leaves are a couple of different species of Carex. This is all growing in the shade of a big white pine. To repeat myself from recent blogs, my overriding goal is to develop more stable plantings like this one that need almost no care, have interesting seasonal flowers and, most importantly, look good in green the rest of the year. And just for good measure I am throwing in a picture of that Paeonia veitchii in bloom. It lasts very briefly, so thank goodness the foliage is attractive.

Keeping up with the Weeds

2009-07-08T10:15:00.005-04:00

This modestly assertive Veronica (upright blue flowers) is no match for the weeds. I should replace it with something more substantial.

I just spent about twenty hours over a three day week-end weeding, after which I would describe my gardens as "still weedy." It is the sort of frustration that makes me question my commitment to the scope and nature of the gardening I do at home. It also makes me scrutinize my strategies. With gardens relatively massive in scope, like mine, weed minimization strategies are essential. My "meadow" planting (an experiment in said strategy) is depressingly weedy in spite of dense, mature plantings and frequent and thorough weedings in the past. This experiment in sustainable gardening has been revealing. I have heard speakers talk about their successful "meadows", but with my own experience in mind I would like to see in-person how they cope with persistent weeds like goldenrod, Canada thistle, quack grass, oxalis, etc. (I am developing a new approach in another bed.) In my more conventional mixed planting beds I notice that some big vigorous plants like Nepeta subsessilis, Euphorbia palustris, and my several Monardas have no weeds growing up through them. What I need to do is to better merge my perennials into a continuous, weed excluding mass. It is actually a fairly small list of desirable perennials that have good weed exclusion properties. A look back at my meadow demonstrates that fact convincingly. Another strategy, of course, is to have gardens small enough that keeping up with the weeding and mulching is manageable. I can't bring myself to scale down. There is just too much to learn from my far flung gardening efforts, and since I am usually desk bound at Kingwood Center I don't get my gardening fix at work like I used to.

Know Your Seedlings

2009-06-22T13:34:00.006-04:00

I was weeding my garden the other day and was surprised to see a few score of an unfamiliar seedling which I thought to be a strangely odd weed. After pulling a few I stopped to think and realized they were seedlings of the nearby Gillena trifoliata (Bowman's Root)(seedling and mature plant pictured above). It was a pleasant surprise to have such a desirable plant self seeding. I have grown it in that garden for years and this was the first time I noticed its seedlings. Perhaps I wasn't so heavy on the mulch this year. Coincidentally a few days later I read a brief interview with English horticulturist Noel Kingsbury. He was asked for his top gardening tip, which he gave as, "Get to know what plants in your garden self-seed, so you can recognize the seedlings and not weed them out. Then watch a natural, dynamic process take over." I would add a qualifier to that and say watch the natural, dynamic process take over with caution. I have many times been thrilled to see something self-seeding only to later curse its abundance and difficulty to control.

Flattering Pictures Hide the Dirty Little Secrets

2009-06-04T14:37:00.007-04:00

These little thumbnails really need to be clicked upon for better viewing.

The two pictures above are from the garden I have been working on the longest in my eleven growing seasons in my current home. They were taken this spring (2009)and they both demonstrate a degree of success in achieving my goals with the garden and conveniently hide the frustrating failures. I want the garden to invite the viewer to walk into the garden, not just look at it from afar. Once in the garden the visitor should be enveloped by a flush of various heights, colors, textures, and forms that offer interest to the overview and to the detailed inspection. Where I have failed to complete this goal I have either planted a jumble that looks weedy, or my plantings have not yet coalesced, because I planted too few plants, or they just haven't had time to grow to full size. The jumble is the hardest to fix because I can't bear to get rid of otherwise good plants, and it is hard to tell what to remove when everything is dormant. As I write this I realize I just need to accept the fact that the worst jumble in this garden needs a total reconfiguration. I tell people to be brutal; I need to take my own advice.

The Lengths We Are Willing to Go

2009-05-27T08:27:00.007-04:00

When I ordered twin-flower (Linnaea borealis) in 2007 from Arrowhead Alpines for my new rock garden I was skeptical of its potential for success. I have tried many boreal plants in various hot Midwestern gardens and have had many failures. These boreal plants are native to the acidic soils and cool summers of the far north and suffer from our hot humid summers, and heavy clay soils. With the rock garden I can address the soils issue, but there isn't much I can do about hot weather. To my pleasant surprise the three plants I bought all took off and continue to do well as they begin their third growing season with me.

The "bad" part of this success is that it encourages me to continue to try plants that my experience tells me will not do well. I am sure that most will, in fact, not do well, but it is that chance that is going to cost me time and money. (Ah, but the thrill of success!) And then there is the question of how do I advise others. I answer horticultural questions all day long at work and, if asked, by a caller I would say, "No, twin-flower is not likely to grow well here in north central Ohio. I recommend you not buy it." It is the sort of "don't try this at home" warning. I think hard core gardeners are conditioned to accept the many failures of gardening and understand the specialized needs of some plants. I worry that my callers, who are usually tentative gardeners, will quit if they don't have success. They don't want to go to great lengths to make something grow, and even when they say they will I suspect they don't really understand the lengths we hard core gardeners actually go to make some, "lowly, insignificant, disregarded, flowering for a brief time..." plant like twin-flower survive.

Are Gardens Beautiful?

2009-05-14T09:24:00.009-04:00

Is the above garden beautiful? While not the work of a designer it emulates something we admire in nature for its beauty, doesn't it?

Is this cowslip (Primula veris) a design element? Probably not, but I get great satisfaction out of its vigor and successful colonization of my rockery. It is beautiful.

Can you imagine a landscape architect ever specifying a Jack-in-the-pulpit like this Arisaema sikokianum? But it still offers beauty doesn't it?

I read a blog (Garden Rant) today that asked the question, are ornamental gardens really about beauty? They said that if beauty were the primary ambition there would be careful restraint unlike the exuberant excess of most keen gardener's gardens. She said, "My feeling is that beauty is a side product of gardening, but not the ultimate goal, which is vigorous exercise and pagan nature worship." I agree with the idea that beauty is a side product of gardening, but the rest of that sentence is a bit airy for me. Instead of vigorous exercise (occasionally) and pagan nature worship it is more about a sense of achieving understanding of natural systems through model making. I think we all love to build things and what better challenge is there than to build something out of living, growing, plants. It is a life-long pursuit of mine to learn about plants and their associated life forms. My favorite vehicle for learning is gardening. The garden also offers living space (comfort, as sense of place), and yes it offers beauty. Gardeners find their beauty in more than the quick scan of a carefully groomed minimalist landscape. There is also beauty in a tiny nook, an individual plant, a sense of enclosure, or any of a multiplicity of levels of scale. That's why we like the weird jack-in-the-pulpit or the fine details of the rock garden or the great sweep of a meadow-like planting. They are beautiful in their way and they are fascinating as well for anyone who wants to look beyond the superficial.

Rooting Around in the Spring Garden

2009-04-23T08:54:00.006-04:00

Glaucidium palmatum

Iris x robusta 'Dark Aura'

I am covetous of the way many gardeners can simply bend at the waist and work at soil level in the garden. My mother could do that, and I recall her bending over in her long Guatemalan skirt searching the garden for newly emerging sprouts. She seemed to get great pleasure in personally greeting each returning guest. In our zeal for flowers we often overlook the fascinating world of emerging plants. I have included two that I photographed this spring. The first (Glaucidium palmatum), with the absurd common name of Japanese wood poppy, is subtle. At this stage this is almost a "belly plant." The second (a hybrid iris called Iris x robusta 'Dark Aura') won't let you ignore its intense color as it presents itself in the spring.
For the best views of the images click on them to enlarge to full size.

High End Nurseries That Keep Me Coming Back

2009-04-17T14:17:00.008-04:00

Jeffersonia dubia

Have you seen those high-end specialty plant nurseries that must believe their arcane stock is so unique they can price their stuff at prices about two or three times higher than what others would charge for less rarefied plants? I admit, I have fallen under the spell of a few of those nurseries, and their apparent high prices are actually much higher when I look back and see the substantial attrition rate of what I bought. But yet, I go back, and Jeffersonia dubia is a perfect example of why. It's the Asian counterpart of our native Jeffersonia diphylla (Twinleaf) except that it has vividly colored flowers. When I spotted the plant pictured above this spring I was awe struck. I bought three of these Jeffersonia dubia seven years ago. Only two plants are still with me and one of those two is only barely alive. The third is thriving as the photographs suggest. That reminds me of another reason these high-end specialty nurseries are even more expensive than they seem. It is usually a good idea to buy at least three of each selection in order to increase your chances of finding that "sweet spot" where it will thrive. Why, for example is one of my Jeffersonia thriving while the other two, planted in what seemed to be comparably suitable environs are dead or dying? At least now if someone tells me they tried Jeffersonia dubia without success I can smugly say, "It's doing great for me."

It's Alive!, It's Alive!, It's Alive!

2009-04-08T10:59:00.005-04:00

A lifestyle garden is all about simple pleasures, especially the many tiny simple pleasures of a day to day life. One of those simple pleasures is the discovery in the spring that the questionable plant you put in last year actually made it through the winter. The tiny sprouts pictured above represent one such pleasure. It is the sprout of a groundcover raspberry (sold as: Rubus arcticus subsp.x stellarcticus) I bought last year from a mail order nursery that did not evoke much confidence in me. But the nursery had this curious plant that was said to have been developed in Sweden and would grow as a groundcover in a wide variety of conditions while producing a crop of raspberries. Its description was irresistible to me, and I couldn't find anyone else offering it (which also made me suspicious), so I took a chance. The plants arrived in horrible condition. I fussed over them until they became established, but a few never did. Throughout the summer the survivors grew modestly. I continued to wonder if they were going to amount to anything or were they just part of yet another exaggerated marketing claim. Seeing them emerge this spring has given me some assurance that at least they are viable plants. Now we will have to see if they produce those promised raspberries.

Patience

2009-04-02T08:09:00.010-04:00

Narcissus 'Ghost Dance' from Mitch Novelty Daffodils

Narcissus 'Icelandic Pink' from Mitch Novelty Daffodils

I was recently putting together an illustrated lecture called "Low Budget Perennials & Annuals for the Home Landscape", and I was reminded of the virtue of methodically building up stock in a plant that does well, such as by frequently dividing it, allowing it to spread on its own, or propagating it by seed. It is a practice that is not only a cost saving measure, but an important technique in developing a satisfying garden. While there are plenty of people who have the means and the drive to install a virtually finished garden, I think the gardeners who love the process of gardening are more patient than that. The garden evolves over time as the gardener reacts to successes and failures while patiently accumulating stock for bold initiatives that would be too costly (or rash) to acquire by other means.

Pictured above are a couple of scanned slides of daffodils I bought from Mitsch Nursery, a specialty daffodil grower and breeder. For some reason I am fascinated with the rarer (and more expensive) daffodils which I buy in small quantities, line out in a little daffodil nursery, and divide in a few years when I have enough to make an impression. I also find out how well the plants are going to do before I make a commitment to use them in the garden.

Hope Confirmed

2009-03-16T10:30:00.006-04:00

Snow drops (Galanthus) pictured on top, are rather common bulbs, but for the lifestyle garden they play an important role. Every year for as long as I have been an adult I have eagerly looked for the first signs of spring by seeking out the first blooming plant. More often than not they have been snow drops. We may take it for granted, but I think it is an important emotional lift to see those first spring flowers. I know at Kingwood Center on the first warm day of March we get a sudden little surge of visitors, and I suspect most have their heads down looking for some sort of floral assurance that spring is on the way. It is a rare spring indeed that I don't hear someone almost breathlessly announce the first snowdrops, hearing the first spring peepers, hearing the first red-wing blackbirds or some other sign of spring. These things are important to us, and having one of those gratifying signs of spring right outside your back door, like I have my snow drops, is very satisfying.

I included a second picture of Christmas rose (Helleborus niger), because it blooms as early as snow drops but more spectacularly for even more end of winter gratification. I grow this clump outside my back door as well.

Garden Hoars

2009-02-10T16:04:00.006-05:00

An image of a hoary frost highlighting the exquisite "bones" of a garden seems to be an obligatory winter picture in English garden magazines. There are also many pictures of hoary frosts on wild gardens illustrating the winter interest of ornamental grasses and and other weather resistant perennials. Pictures of the morning dew sometimes fill the same niche.

I have always been a bit ambivalent about images of these ephemera unless I think about what they represent. While pretty in their own right I think they are representative of the wonderful emotional satisfaction of being out in the early morning garden. For me they represent the morning when everything is fresh (you, the day, the air, the light...). It is always a struggle during the week to walk through the garden to my truck in the exhilarating atmosphere of morning and drive off to work. I am grateful, however, that I have the garden setting that can evoke those exhilarating feelings. It is part of the lifestyle garden.

Garden Sanctuaries

2009-02-04T10:37:00.001-05:00

A carefully tucked away garden sanctuary.

A mountaintop outcropping that offers a sort of spiritual experience, not just from the view but also from the journey to get there, the isolation, and the beauty of the rockery.

Winter is a time of contemplation and anticipation of the pleasures of the garden. The most profound book I know of for guidance for achieving the pleasures of the garden is not a garden book at all but one that defies adequate description in this brief format. It is A Pattern Language by Christopher Alexander, et.al. and was published in 1977. The book offers many axioms for planning a good living environment which often apply directly or indirectly to gardening (and thus my theme, lifestyle garden). In describing one axiom they say, We believe that every community, regardless of its particular faith, regardless of whether it even has a faith in any organized sense, needs some place where this feeling of slow, progressive access through gates to a holy center may be experienced. When such a place exists in a community, even if it is not associated with any particular religion, we believe that the feeling of holiness, in some form or other, will gradually come to life.... I extend this idea to the garden where I think every garden could benefit from a secret or special destination for repose and tranquility. The staging of the approach to and the siting of such a profound place can be an overriding theme of the entire garden. (At Kingwood Center, where I work, the swimming pool couldn't be accessed without going through a garden.) Illustrating such a place is a challenge because the all important approach is difficult to include.

My fiance's family has the good fortune of owning a naturally occurring "sacred" place which they protect and revere as sacred but probably never describe it to themselves that way. One family member even wants to have her ashes scattered there. (See my dog above.) Not everyone can have a mountaintop rock outcropping, but many people can create a special spot in their garden that can convey an emotional or even spiritual sensation like an intimate little sitting area as in the top picture above.

Xmas Dread

2008-12-18T07:53:00.000-05:00

A Plastic Santa Claus at an Undisclosed Location

Winter King Hawthorn at Kingwood Center

During the Christmas holiday madness there is always the faint whisper of tiresome people complaining about, among other things, the proliferation of cheap artificial materials that are so ubiquitous they have actually come to symbolize Christmas decor. This being a garden lifestyle column I can hardly avoid joining those tiresome people. I have come to dread Christmas for many reasons, but certainly the glorification of Chinese molded plastic is one ritual worthy of dread. From a gardening perspective, wouldn't it be more gratifying to grow and harvest natural materials for winter/Christmas decorations instead of buying imported red and green petrochemicals? I offer up two pictures of Christmas decoration for contrast. Guess which I, for one, prefer.

Clothes Make the Gardener (sorta)

2008-12-04T11:28:00.001-05:00

If gardening is part of your lifestyle you must like being outside. Although it may seem obvious, having the right clothes to wear can make a huge difference in how enjoyable being outside can be, especially in the rain, snow, or cold. I learned this lesson when I had the good fortune of gardening for an employer who offered a clothing allowance for work cloths. If the clothing allowance was used just for specialty cloths it was sufficient for buying (over the years) the best rain suit, the best coveralls, the best work coat, the best gloves, and etc. I never appreciated how not only bearable but actually pleasant inclement weather can be to work in until I had the right clothing. I even experience a sort of euphoria when I can work comfortably in weather that would normally chase me (and everyone else) inside. I also learned this lesson as a cold weather runner. It is fun and empowering to have just the right equipment to do the job and clothing is part of the equipment. Some of my favorites are my L.L. Bean high-top rubber bottom insulated boots, Helly Hansen rain wear, and Carhartt insulated coveralls. I am still looking for a really good pair of cold weather work gloves.

A Valuable Subtle Floral Display

2008-11-17T14:31:00.000-05:00

A plant like our native witch-hazel (Hamamelis virginiana) is great for the "lifestyle" garden. Admittedly it is easy to be skeptical of the glories of its floral display. On November 13th, as I was walking through the public garden where I work (Kingwood Center) I noticed a slight yellow tinge to a large shrub at the edge of the woods. Closer inspection revealed the witch-hazel in full bloom. The value is in its nuance. Visceral connections to your garden in November may be a challenge, but having flowers, even modest ones, provide a wonderful discovery opportunity, and another reason to be out there in your garden.

Paw Paw

2008-11-03T16:49:00.000-05:00

This last weekend I noticed my paw paw fruit were finally ripe (after a few light and one heavy frost. Determined to make good use of all my garden's bounty I did a search for recipes and settled on paw paw preserves. My fiance and daughter got a good laugh at my efforts, especially when the preserves proved to be watery (bad recipe) and not very tasty (a problem with paw paws?) I would describe the reaction to tasting my paw paw preserves as,"...not too bad, but a taste is enough." Unfortunately I can't try something else with my paw paws until next year.

Accommodating Pipevine Swallowtails

2008-10-14T09:50:00.000-04:00

To what lengths should a gardener go to accommodate wildlife, like butterflies for example? I felt badly a few years ago, because I squashed most of the pipevine swallowtail caterpillars on my Asian species of Dutchman's pipe (Aristolochia manshuriensis). My vine was small, and I didn't want it ruined, but I did spare a few caterpillars. I didn't see any for the next couple of years, so when they finally returned this year I let them have their way with my vines. You can see the result in the picture above. (Click on the picture to see it full sized.)Most of the damage was done late in the season, so the health of the vines will not be adversely effected. If my vines were more prominently displayed I may have been more concerned about the appearance, but so what. In my lifestyle garden theme I accommodate minor inconveniences like the feeding of pipevine swallowtail caterpillars. All things considered it is the preferable approach.

Pruning (and eating) Concord Grapes

2008-09-23T10:40:00.000-04:00

I am enjoying a huge grape harvest this year. I think I finally understand the pruning technique, to which I attribute my bountiful fruiting. Unfortunately it took a few years to sink in. Our local extension agent, Maurus Brown, specialized in grapes before he moved on and wasn't replaced. While he was in the area I had the pleasure of two of his lectures on grapes. After each lecture I would try to apply his pruning suggestions to my vastly overgrown concord grape vine. This spring I finally felt like I knew what I was doing. There is no substitute for learning proper techniques. Oh yes, it is great fun to shoot the breeze while standing at the grape arbor squeezing grapes into your mouth and spitting out the seeds. I liken it to friends sitting around picking nuts from their shells or sitting on the porch eating watermelon.

Tied Hedge

2008-09-08T16:35:00.000-04:00

Now here is something you don't see every day, a tied hedge. A recent visit to the Cleveland Botanical Garden revealed the above pictured cockspur hawthorn (Crataegus crus-galli). At first glance it seemed to be a normal hedge, but a closer look revealed the technique of, rather than cutting off the branches, tying them into the body of the hedge. The staff member I spoke with said it is a bit daunting with the large sharp thorns of this hawthorn. I thought it not only created an interesting affect, but I suppose it is a continuation of a technique used historically on agricultural hedges to bolster their ability to fence in livestock.

Other Container Plants

2008-08-18T10:02:00.000-04:00

Crocosmia 'Star of the East'
Boophane disticha
Ennealophus euryandrus

Creating a container display full of colorful seasonal plants is very popular, but most of my containers each have a single plant that I keep year after year and only a few are particularly showy. I guess its the collector in me, but I don't think I can know a plant very well until I grow it. My containers allow me the chance to challenge my horticultural skills by growing a variety of tender plants year after year without a greenhouse while allowing me to come to know some weird or unusual plants I wouldn't get to experience otherwise.

At the extreme end of the spectrum of what I will put up with to satisfy my curiosity is Ennealophus euryandrus. This obscure member of the iris family is a wretched specimen as seen above. The flowers are sparse and are typically gone by the time of day I get home from work, but I keep it around, somewhat reluctantly, because growing it feels broadening to me. The slightly obscure Boophane disticha, on the other hand, is very exciting because of its distinctive leaf arrangement and its long life cycle. Its habit of slowly developing a larger and larger bulb each year and taking who knows how long to flower (seven years and counting with no flower)makes it seem venerable and worthy of a sort of reverence. Finally my Crocosmia 'Star of the East' gives me the more conventional satisfaction of a fabulous flower show as well as a glimpse into the fascinating history of Crocosmia breeding in Norfolk, UK.

The Garden as a Dialogue

2008-08-01T17:48:00.000-04:00

I recently read a great quote that ties in perfectly to this blog's theme of gardening fitting into a lifestyle. It was from the back page columnist in the June 2008 edition of Gardens Illustrated. He said "And the gardener is essential to what a garden is. It is a dialogue between a gardener and the natural world. It is not the natural world. It is not the gardener. It is the thing between them and a living thing in itself."
The image above is typical of what some may say is a muddle but to me is part of my dialogue with the plant world. The mix ebbs and flows as I direct it but also as I sometimes follow its lead. The Sidalcia just behind the Japanese Iris is one of those plants that defies the gardener's directives and finds its own comfort zone.

Lifestyle Garden in Garden Restricted Neighborhood

2008-07-23T09:29:00.001-04:00

CLICK ON IMAGES FOR A BETTER VIEW OF EACH

This home has an attractive courtyard enclosed on three sides. The fourth side was open to the street, and the neighborhood has very restrictive rules on what is allowed in the way of landscaping. Working closely with the sensibilities of the neighborhood I added a few tall, narrow, and upright white cedars, rearranged and added some tall grasses, and added a few highlights like spring daffodils and summer Liatris (see the Liatris in bloom in one of the images above). The neighborhood approved the modest little landscape addition and the courtyard became a much more attractive place for making a garden part of the owner's lifestyle.

Pass Along Plant (Cardiocrinum cordatum)

2008-07-17T09:50:00.001-04:00

A great pleasure of gardening is acquiring plants that have a special history. In 2005 Tom Yates of Lantern Court at Holden Arboretum gave me a little pot of an undetermined Cardiocrinum. He said it had beautiful leaves in the spring which you can see from the top photograph. I was pleasantly surprised to find that it was hardy for me, and, of course, I was thrilled with the beautiful leaves. Cardiocrinums are monocarpic, so they take a few years to bloom and then they die. This year, three years after receiving the plant I got the special pleasure of seeing it bloom (see picture above). Now I know it is a Cardiocrinum cordatum. As the plant dies I will be looking for offsets around the original bulb in hope of finding a cluster of new bulbs to distribute in various locations around my garden.

Edible Landscape

2008-07-08T09:47:00.000-04:00

I haven't addressed the edible landscape in my lifestyle garden blog so far, I guess because it is so obvious. I try not to be a slave to my edible landscape. I mostly grow trees, shrubs and perennials and grow only a few things that have to be started anew each year. So far this year I loved my asparagus and now it is blueberry season (as pictured). The grapes are far from ripe but show a good fruit set; apples and pears are coming along; and I may get a few peaches this year. My son is impatient for the raspberries which aren't quite ready. For me having these plants is like having candy plants. I just go out and pick them when I want a snack, and sometimes I get up the energy and maybe get some help (as pictured) and prepare something a bit more substantial than a snack. I recommend this approach to reluctant gardeners. Grow a few easy woody plants and just enjoy whatever bounty they provide - no pressure. I would like to make more efficient utilization of all the food I grow, but I believe it is a skill and a commitment that I haven't quite developed yet. My food plants, however, do bring great pleasure and connect me with my garden in a manner that does not compare with ornamentals.

Exemplary Lifestyle Gardening in California

2008-07-02T15:09:00.000-04:00

I usually use images of my own garden on this blog, but a recent trip to California allowed me to be enthralled with Rancho Los Alamitos, an historic garden in Long Beach. The place epitomizes my ideas of how a garden can play a critical role in creating a satisfying lifestyle.

Click on images for a closer view.

These first two pictures are of the inner courtyard. Imagine walking through these areas as you go from one part of the house to another.

The last two pictures are just a sampling of the comfortable environment of the garden around the house. They struck me as wonderful places to relax and enjoy the fabulous climate of the area, and one of the best of these was a tiny little courtyard (that I couldn't capture with my lens) used by the former owner and current Director as a private refuge for careful contemplation.

Perennials and the June Peak

2008-06-16T08:33:00.000-04:00

This picture was taken on June 7th, a time in Ohio, at least, when growers of annuals and tender perennials are still lining out little plugs and waiting for a bit of growth. Meanwhile, I have already had three months of pleasure from my perennials. As I look at the the garden pictured here I know that after late June the peak bloom will be over for this spot, but it will continue to be interesting. By the way, I have become a bit of a compulsive rock wall builder. The rockeries offer the opportunity to grow plants that don't seem to make it elsewhere. I am particularly pleased with the blue flowered Iris sintenisii and the pink flowered Polygola major and the pink flowered hybrid Lewisia all more or less in the middle of the picture. For a closer look click on the picture.

More Meadow

2008-06-09T09:33:00.000-04:00

When I started this blog less than a year ago some of my first images were of my efforts at developing a perennial planting that would simulate a meadow. Here is a glimpse of the garden this year. I read about this sort of thing regularly, and people make it sound like such an easy thing to do. I have long been skeptical of its ease, and my efforts, while very satisfactory, have been anything but easy. The weed pressure is the biggest problem. Regular hand weeding has been a must for me, and that is after I spent a couple of growing seasons prior to planting creating a "clean" site. Secondly it was expensive planting many hundreds of plants even though I was able to buy tiny plugs wholesale. It was another challenge to establish those tiny plugs directly in the garden. Seeding is probably a more economical alternative, but the weed pressure is many many times greater the first few years, the design options are limited, and the range of plants available is extremely limited.
By the way, the most prolific plants in this picture are Oriental poppy (Papaver orientale 'Beauty of Livermore', the pale blue flowering Amsonia hubrictii, and the consipicuous but not so prolific blue flowers are dark blue and lighter blue selections of Siberian iris.

To Spray or Not

2008-05-30T08:54:00.000-04:00

Iris 'Honey Glazed'

The use or avoidance of pesticides is integral to a gardener's lifestyle. I try to avoid them, but I am not an absolutist. For example, I don't know how I would manage my ten acres without glyphosate (i.e. generic brand Round-up) and Ortho's cocktail of selective broadleaf herbicides. (The latter is mostly used on poison ivy.) I use one fungicide and only once a year on my two peach trees to avoid peach leaf curl. (I don't spray my apples at all.) I feel pretty good about being mostly pesticide free. The bearded iris pictured above is an example of a decision not to use pesticides. I am visited by iris borers and actually gave up recently on a clump of tall bearded iris because of chronic infestation from borers. But so far this year borer problems are not evident as typified by the the Iris 'Honey Glazed' pictured above. I think the use of pesticides is a cost/benefit question. Unfortunately, people typically under estimate the cost of pesticides such as their personal and family's exposure, general pollution of the environment, and adverse impact on biological equilibriums. For me the cost is higher than the benefit of spaying my iris for borers.

Economical Plants Allow Experimentation

2008-05-16T14:54:00.000-04:00

Dodecatheon meadia

Sometimes we chose a good plant but a poor place to plant it. It's nice to be able to put plants in a few different places to see how they will do, but that's difficult when the plants cost several (or even a score or two) dollars each. Bulb dealers often have good deals on plants we might otherwise think of as perennials. Pictured above is shooting star (Dodecatheon meadia) which I bought a couple of years ago from a bulb dealer for just a bit more than a dollar each. At that price I was comfortable buying enough plants to try them in several places. As expected they dwindled away in at least one spot. If I had purchased only a few and happened to put them in the unsuccessful spot I might have concluded that I just couldn't grow shooting star. (By the way, the recent edition of Rock Garden Quarterly includes a very convincing argument for why Dodecatheon is more properly in the genus Primula.

)
Another bulb dealer bargain I got a few years ago was gayfeather (Liatris spicata) for $.35 each.

A Curious Little Book

2008-05-06T10:49:00.000-04:00

Here is a great little book about incorporating gardening and similar aesthetics into a lifestyle. I'm not normally a fan of garden narratives. They tend to be excessively sentimental, try to awe us with their triumphs over exaggerated gardening obstacles, or ponderously name every plant in the garden. This 1898 book written by Elizabeth von Arnim, but first published anonymously, doesn't lack for sentimentality, but the free spirited Elizabeth is such an amusing character I find it somehow appropriate. Popular in its time but safely categorized as obscure today the book describes an at least somewhat fictionalized year in the life of the author on her German estate. The author's first of twenty-two books, this light reading offers fascinating glimpses into pre-World War I rural Germany, early feminism and (most importantly to me) an example of how a garden can be instrumental in personal fulfillment. I was lucky to find a copy of the book, in of all places, one floor below my office in the Kingwood Center library. Alas, the copy is too fragile to circulate, but the book is available free on-line and inexpensively from many book dealers.

Clotheslines

2008-04-24T08:24:00.000-04:00

One of the most common reactions I get when people visit my garden is expressions of surprise that I have a clothesline. The sanctimonious side of me wants to ask why they don't have a clothesline. We tolerate utility meters, poles, and wires, propane tanks, satellite dishes, stand pipes, dog runs and cages, cars, asphalt driveways, and concrete sidewalks in our gardens; why shouldn't we find room for something as valuable these days as a clothesline. And in keeping with my life style gardening theme, I find some gratification in hanging my clothes up to dry, although I do begrudge the extra time it takes.

Subtley vs. the Big Show

2008-04-15T13:49:00.000-04:00

One of my favorite aspects of my early spring garden is the search for small emerging growth, especially when flowers are involved. I mentioned on a previous post how winter aconite scattered sparsely in my rockery gave me a different sort of satisfaction than the scores or sometimes even thousands typically displayed in dramatic massings. I was reminded of a similar sense of satisfaction as I recently discovered my double bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis 'Multiplex') emerging, each enscheathed by a leaf. They will be an eye full when they open, but I love this stage at least as much.

Esoterica

2008-04-03T10:28:00.000-04:00

I laughed at myself yesterday (2 April 2008) when I saw this lone tiny little flower in my early spring garden. In 2005 I bought this bulb for $15.00. Two years later it hasn't done much. I was seduced by esoterica, a common disease among gardeners. Meet Shibateranthis pinnatifida, also known slightly less esoterically as Eranthis pinnatifida. It's a charming little Japanese woodland native but given it size, its $15.00 price, and little apparent proclivity for multiplication I don't think I used my garden budget very wisely when I bought this.

Common Plant in an Special Venue

2008-04-01T15:38:00.000-04:00

It has been a long winter and a slowly developing spring here in north central Ohio. Typically Eranthis hyemalis (winter aconite) is long gone by 29 March when this picture was taken. What I like about this picture is that I planted my winter aconites in my rockeries rather than in the swaths they are typically used for. It is a common plant often taken for granted as a patch of early spring yellow. As a scattering of individual plants peaking out of rockery I think they take on a sort of rarefied air to themselves as something to be savored, a precious thing to be closely observed.

The Special Quality of Vines

2008-03-19T16:23:00.000-04:00

I have had occasion to speak and write about the book A Pattern Language recently and I am reminded about the transformative quality vines can have when well placed such as on the tool shed of this Chicago area garden.

A Great Shade Garden Plant

2008-02-28T09:43:00.000-05:00

It is a bit slow growing but in a few years golden-seal will make a sumptuous clump of deep green leaves even in deep shade. These red fruit are a bonus. I wonder if they are edible; they look tasty, but I am afraid to try.

A Missed Opportunity

2008-02-12T09:37:00.000-05:00

I am giving a talk to a local Lion's Club in a few days on the history of Kingwood Center. I had a great time scanning old black and white prints of Kingwood in the days when it was Mr. King's home and when it was a new public garden in the 1950's. It reminded me again how interesting Mr. King's featured garden was in his time, when it still reflected the original 1926 design details of the landscape architecture firm Pitkin and Mott. It has been a source of persistent frustration that I have been unable to find the funds to restore that garden. Currently the garden is showing its eighty-plus years. That's not to say our current treatment of the garden isn't attractive, but the infrastructure is crumbling and we are missing a great opportunity to really distinguish this space from the rest of our contemporay gardening efforts.

2008-01-29T09:49:00.000-05:00

While on a North American Rock Garden Society meeting in the summer of 2007 I had the chance to see Deschampsia flexuosa (Wavy Hair Grass) in its native habitat as pictured above. I am always fascinated by the frequent contasts in appearance and behavior of plants in the garden (see below) and in the wild (see above).

2008-01-28T16:57:00.000-05:00

Deschampsia flexuosa (Wavy Hair Grass) is a fairly obscure native grass that I have enjoyed growing in my garden. It was slow to take, but as can be seen in the picture above it has begun to fill in nicely. It is notable in part because it is shade tolerant unlike most other grasses, and it forms short dense mats with pleasantly soft flower and seed heads. I saw a line drawing in William Robinson's The Wild Garden of peonies growing in a swath of grass. Maybe this Deschampsia can be that swath of grass for my peonies growing on the edge of the canopy of a silver maple.

Asparagus is to my left and raspberries are toward the camera

2008-01-09T16:32:00.000-05:00

Fitting Homegrown Food into a Gardening Lifestyle

2008-01-08T10:51:00.000-05:00

One aspect of synchronizing my garden with my day to day life that has proven to be a challenge for me is homegrown food utilization. I have never been much of a vegetable gardener, although I love to grow perennial foodstuffs like asparagus, apples, raspberries, and so forth. I am also rarely without tomatoes, but my challenge has always been in organizing my meals around food available in the garden. I will often forget that asparagus needs to be cut; I won't feel like eating what's ripe; or I will be in a hurry and not want to take the time to pick and/or process what's out there. The most memorable frustration along these lines was when my then spouse insisted on buying lettuce at the grocery store rather than walk forty feet to three rows of different lettuces she helped select.

Some successes have included raspberries and blueberries which are like picking candy to me, making fruit "leather" from apple sauce(my kids love it), growing potatoes and garlic which can be harvested all at once and stored, and drying cherry tomatoes to make so called sun dried tomatoes. (I use a dehydrator, not the sun alas.)

I am alert to new way of getting better satisfaction from the large surplus of food I grow. For example, this year I am keen on trying fingerling potatoes which may offer a bigger reward than the varieties of potatoes that are so amazingly inexpensive at the grocery store, but I am looking for more and better ideas.

“Luck is the Residue of Design”

2007-12-27T15:18:00.001-05:00

Sometimes success in gardening results from luck, but gardeners can improve their luck through their gardening practices. For example, I tried a couple of different cultivars of the hybrid saxifrage often called mossy saxifrage or Saxifraga x arendsii but usually just called Saxifraga followed by one of a huge number of cultivar names such as, in my case, Purple Robe and Floral Carpet. I have noticed and read that they are subject to rot in anything but a very light soil. I hoped a crevice in a rock wall would give them proper drainage. They grew well the first growing season and the second, but alas it looked like I lost them over the second winter. But wait, as the third summer wore on I noticed that in the little moss covered clumps of soil that accumulated on top of the projecting rocks the little saxifrage leaves were emerging. So maybe the crevice didn't work out for them, but I did provide the general environment suitable for the plants and luckily some seeds found the right spot nearby.

2007-12-27T15:05:00.000-05:00

Planted the previous year, this Saxafraga X arendsii hybrid is doing well the following spring (on 30 April). Unfortunately, this site will ultimately prove to be unsatifactory. Luckily the plant will find a better spot to grow nearby, as seen below the following year.

2007-12-27T14:59:00.000-05:00

While there are two saxifrages in this picture the one that I describe above as finding its own best spot in the garden is the one with the feather on it. (Click on the picture for a larger version.)

The Pleasures of Coppicing

2007-12-14T15:46:00.000-05:00

One of the pleasures of owning some open land is the challenge of managing the vegetation. Of my ten acres five was farmed until I bought it ten years ago. Now it is growing up into woodland with black locust (Robinia pseudoacacia) being the overwhelmingly dominant component of the trees colonizing this land. Those of you who know black locust know that it suckers freely, especially when cut down or when the roots have been cut. I have been cutting the black locust when it gets to be about fence post size. I use the posts in my garden and for firewood while the roots sucker into an interesting grove of uniformly sized trees, which I will cut again in about six years. This practice creates what is called a “coppice” which is a word that can be used as a verb to describe the process or as a noun to describe the forest that results. It is an ancient forest management practice for continuous production of useful wood products. The history and practice is fascinatingly described in a book called Ancient Woodland its history, vegetation and uses in England by Oliver Rackham.

I enjoy the look and feel of the coppice and the process appeals to the gardener in me. It also keeps me closely in touch with these five acres of land as I intimately watch and manage the development of the new woodland. This is one aspect of what I mean by life style gardening. I am doing something similar with a grove of willows I planted along a creek (a topic for another posting).

2007-12-14T15:42:00.000-05:00

Winter work! This is the first cutting of young trees several years after the plowing stopped. Posts and firewood are harvested and the trees will quickly sucker to form an attractive grove (aka coppice).

2007-12-14T15:37:00.000-05:00

The young even aged trees make a nice grove to walk through. These will be cut in three or four more years and they will quickly regrow into a similar stand.

Yellowroot - great fall color plus more attributes

2007-12-05T09:25:00.000-05:00

When we worked together at the Indianapolis Museum of Art, Chris Turner used to tease me about my affection for Yellowroot (Xanthorhiza simplicissima). True, during the growing season it is rather plain, but it comes alive in the fall and is one of the very last plants around here in Ohio to lose its fall color. It also makes a very useful groundcover for heavy shade where it will grow almost two feet tall. This photograph is from my planting at the Indianapolis Museum of Art.

2007-12-05T09:19:00.000-05:00

Here are the very insignificant spring flowers of Yellowroot photographed in a woodland in North Carolina. Clearly the plant is not grown for its flower effect.

2007-12-05T09:15:00.000-05:00

This is my most recent picture of yellowroot (Xanthorhiza simplicissima) taken shortly before Thanksgiving (2007) outside my back door. I hope it comes through on the web that the leaves were not only brilliant yellow when most everything else had lost their leaves, but they were also very glossy.

A shot at a "meadow" garden

2007-11-30T11:03:00.000-05:00

I am fascinated with work that establishes a community of plants similar to a meadow although with selected ornamental plants. I recently started to create one of these and have a long way to go, but I have been pleased with the progress that the next three images represents.

I was a bit late in photographing the Amsonia in its best fall color, but here is the fall version of this new planting.

2007-11-30T10:58:00.000-05:00

In the summer this "meadow" planting looks like this.

2007-11-30T10:55:00.000-05:00

Here is the spring version so far.

An Ohio Hardy Ginger

2007-11-20T13:23:00.000-05:00

The curious fall flowers of Zingiber mioga.

2007-11-20T13:19:00.000-05:00

Glenna Sheaffer, a gardener at Kingwood Center in Mansfield, Ohio where I work has grown this ginger (Zingiber mioga) without winter protection for well over a decade. A few years ago she gave some to me and it has taken off in a rather shady spot. Growing over three feet tall it adds some hard to find bulk to the shade garden. It has the curious habit of flowering in the fall. See the picture below.

How Did I Miss This Until Now?

2007-11-16T15:37:00.000-05:00

Have you ever bumped into an unfamiliar plant and then suddenly seen other references to it? It makes me wonder how I missed it in the past. That happened to me recently with Melianthus major. First I saw the container in the accompanying picture at Kingwood Center where I am the Director. I was stopped in my tracks by the vivid blue foliage for which this photograph fails to do justice. Our head gardener (John Makley) told me what it was. (He is obviously one step ahead of me in this department.) Shortly thereafter I saw it mentioned in Helen Dillon's article in the magazine The English Garden. Then a few days later I saw in Horticulture magazine. An article by Alice McGowan listed it among the tender plants (zone 8) that can be overwintered dormant in a cool spot "...after frost kills the tops."

Suddenly I feel unfulfilled until I can get my hands on one of those.

A Little "Patio" for Plants

2007-11-16T09:27:00.000-05:00

There is a quote floating around that if you garden long enough you will eventually become a rock gardener. That seems to be coming true for me. I discovered a source of wonderful sandstone and have been spending the last few years building various new rock related environments for my plants. One of the most gratifying is a little "patio" in the midst of a larger garden where I grow plants in crevices between rocks.

Plants I couldn't grow in other parts of the garden thrive here like the Lewisia 'George Henley' (the second image down). I love that plant for some reason. My plant "patio" also offers a great place for my fall blooming Crocus kotschyanus which can be seen pictured in bloom in the fall of 2007 next to a Dianthus and a big Japanese anemone flopping over next to it. The crocus is so easy to lose in mid summer after their leaves have died down and before their flowers emerge. My little patio offers them a safe refuge, and I get such a kick out of my annual surprise at seeing them each fall. And finally the top picture featuring the big blue clump of Dianthus gratianopolitanus 'Firewitch' shows the general texture of the planting that for some reason I particularly enjoy. I do have some trouble with annual weeds, but I think if I finally get all the crevices planted that should be less of a problem in the future.

Introductions

2007-11-15T16:11:00.000-05:00

I am taking the approach that the way to learn how to blog is to jump in. So here I am with nothing prepared in advance, but lots of ideas and photographs. I am Chuck Gleaves, a gardener in north central Ohio. I have a master's degree in botany and I have been working in the public garden profession my entire career (about thirty years). While as the Director of a public garden (Kingwood Center) I now do precious little hands on gardening at work, but I am in the midst of gardens, garden information, gardeners, and garden issues all day long. And when I get home to my ten acres of land I head for my garden.

I expect to make new postings about once a week. I don't count this as a real posting so I will get busy and post some comments and supporting pictures.