Esoterica

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

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

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

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

 

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.

 

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).

 

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