A Hardy Clumping Bamboo

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

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

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

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)

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

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

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

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.