Perspectives on Ways to Garden

I think that gardeners who are paying attention are becoming less certain of what a “proper" garden (as an English friend used to say) actually is. I have been reading a fairly new book that Noel Kingsbury wrote with Piet Oudolf called Planting, A New Perspective. It is a provocative book on the topic of plantings that emulate, in many respects, natural plant communities except they are aesthetically designed and they utilize ornamental plants which do not necessarily share common ecosystems. I have experimented with this type of planting and remain mystified by how to sustain them. I also recently read a book called Bringing Nature Home by Rick Darke and Douglas Tallamy. Their brilliantly instructively illustrated book emphasizes gardening predominantly with native plants in stable associations. It was very convincing. I see similarities between the two in style but not in substance. Those two approaches remind me of the multiplicity of approaches to gardening and all the associated consequences beyond the desired appearance. 

In this image below of Kingwood Center in Mansfield Ohio the calendar is dictating the end date of a garden still in full bloom. It seems ridiculous at first blush, but if there is to be a spring display the summer crop must come out in time to plant the bulbs.

 

The next image of a seasonal planting in Connecticut is a classic, but today’s sustainable gardeners might say it’s a rich man’s conceit, a display of resources at his command. And they would be right, but does that make it a bad garden?

 

Below is a rose garden on June 23^rd  at the Columbus (Ohio) Park of Roses. Here is an entire garden dedicated to plants that probably need more care and attention than any other plant a gardener is likely to choose, yet here it sits out of bloom and contributing almost nothing at a time when most gardens are in their glory. But who would dare disparage a rose garden?  

 

On the other side of the gardening pendulum we see in the image below what seems to be a beautiful informal, sort of wild looking planting at the Berlin Botanical Garden. Look closer. I took this picture largely because it includes, Equisetum (horsetail) which is about the most obdurate weed I know. It will be a permanent and aggressive fixture in that garden until everything is removed and all traces of the Equisetum are destroyed. I have had similar experiences repeatedly with Agropyron repens (quackgrass), which is probably easier to control than Equisetum. It is this sort of experience that mystified me about the Kingsbury/Oudolf approach. Removal of the horsetail would be about a draconian two year project with no guarantee of success.

 

Below is a lovely looking scene at my home of blooming Stylophorum diphyllum (celandine poppy). Unfortunately it represents the failure of an attempt to create a beautiful and stable community of native and floriferous garden plants. One species is taking over and driving all the other species out in the process. Nevertheless I see the Stylophorum diphyllum as a valuable tool in a Darke/Tallamy type gardening where it could be confined by bordering shrubs.

 

Then we come to this proud community of cultivated plants that seem to be stable, growing in a Berlin park. (The first six or seven feet of perennials up to the shrubs) If they are indeed a compatible community, it represents the work of a very knowledgeable gardener. But what has been achieved aesthetically compared to a more conventional garden? Was I evaluating this garden at the wrong time (July 9^th) or is it kind of nondescript? 

 

My conclusion is that there is room for all of the above. There is no such thing as a “proper” garden. We work in a multitude of circumstances with many ambitions and goals. While I certainly have my preferences I applaud the achievement of all of the gardening goals represented in the pictures above and the skills required to achieve them.

Needs Well Drained Soil

A new bed at Kingwood Center features a highly amended soil intended to offer excellent drainage to plants that are hardy but intolerant of wet winter soils.


As I continue my fascination with rock gardens I keep coming up against plants that are hardy to my zone 5 but often die in the winter, not because they are damaged by the cold, but because they rot in the winter-long water-logged soils. I ran into this problem years ago and recall being perturbed by the garden centers that sell drainage sensitive plants like Aster frikarti, Lewisia, most Penstemons, Incarvillea delavayi (hardy gloxinia), many Agastaches, and most Veronicas without a word about drainage. Now that I am being introduced to more and more plants that grow in gravel, screes, sand, and rockeries I have become much more interested in this issue. I was pleased to see that the New Mexico nursery High Country Gardens was saved from bankruptcy. They offer a plethora of plants native to the west that would be hardy here in Ohio but just won't take our wet winter soils. I, like most any plantsman, want to grow those cool looking plants from the west as well as the ones already well known to me (such as the ones above) but that are likely to die over the winter without appropriate growing conditions.

I decided to experiment with a bed at Kingwood Center. I excavated several truckster loads of the underlying clay layer and replaced it with copious amounts of sand, incorporated into the remaining upper level soil layer. When I thought I had enough sand I added some more, because I know sand can just sort of disappear into the soil matrix unless you really add a lot. Now I hope I didn't just build a bathtub.

Then I started looking around for suitable plants. I asked one nursery we deal with regularly what plants they grew that would fit this definition. I enjoyed their reply when they said anything like that would be dead at their nursery. One plant I wanted to try was Euphorbia x martini 'Ascot Rainbow'. I first saw it last year when it seemed that every garden center was offering it as a good zone 5 plant. (Drainage wasn't mentioned on the tag.) I was skeptical but bought some anyway. They were profoundly dead in  the spring. I later read that it needs good drainage and also saw we were even selling them at Kingwood Center. I had to find out if it will perform as claimed. The survival of another selection may be wishful thinking. Every mention I read of Stipa gigantea (Giant Feather Grass) was expansively enthusiastic. Mostly it was listed as zone 7 but one authoritative reference said zone 5, everyone said good drainage is a must. I had to try it. I bought one for home and one for work. The balance of the plants selected for this experimental bed were similarly inspired. Everything has had a good start as can be seen in the above photograph. I will know more in the spring.

Using Fall Blooming Crocus and Autumn Crocus

I think a gardener has to be clever to make effective use of fall blooming crocus and autumn crocus (Colchicum). They are hard to work into a planting scheme and to keep track of during the summer when they are dormant.  Below are some examples of their use:

Crocus ochroleucus on 10 October is growing in the shade of a large beech where little else competes with it. It leaves me a bit unsatisfied in this Kingwood Center location, because it emerges as a sort of curiosity with nothing else around.
 

I planted these Crocus kotschyanus in some rockery and quickly forgot about them. Fortunately they survived and were blooming on 4 October to my surprise and delight mixing in nicely with other plants in the garden.

Autumn crocus, Colchicum autumnale: Somebody on the Kingwood staff did a nice job of selecting this dark spot under a dawn redwood tree (Metasequoia glyptostroboides). With little competition they survive and brighten up the spot beautifully in the fall. This picture was taken on 28 September

Here is another good use for autumn crocus, coming up through a perennial; in this case it is a low growing Nepeta at Kingwood Center

Planting out in the lawn seems to be a very common use of autumn crocus. Here at Kingwood Center we mix them with daffodils. We get a few negative comments about the long grass that we have to tolerate in the spring until the leaves of the autumn crocus and the daffodils die down, and the turf takes a while to recover after being neglected, but the surprise of the autumn crocus in the lawn in the fall is very pleasant.

Why Not Cover Crops?

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.

Heroin Chic in the Garden

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?