Other Container Plants

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

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

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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)

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

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

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

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

 

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.