Winter Containers

Obviously a major part of what I do at work is containers, both at the big house and in the penthouse garden. Since the penthouse is such a harsh environment to grow almost anything, the containers change very little during the winter. There are some tiny containers that come and go seasonally, but for the most part, the plantings up there are permanent.

In the garden at the big house, we just finished putting together the winter containers (there are 58 of them). Here are some photos, though most of the arrangements haven't "flushed out" yet. I'll post more photos in a few weeks, once they're looking a little more full.

The top container is part of a grouping of three. For the winter, the largest pot is anchored with a cryptomeria "Sekkan sugi", the middle one is a variegated acuba, and the smallest of the three is this arborvitae called "Whipcord." It's a favorite container conifer of mine, great for shade in the summer, but can take full sun in the winter.

The second photo is "Black Dragon" cryptomera, variegated boxwood, flowering kale, two different types of dusty miller, "Miracle" heuchera, and dianthus. The Black Dragon, heuchera, and dianthus will all go out into the landscape in the spring.

The bottom container is pretty simple this year; just the variegated boxwood with pansies (Delta "Apple Cider Mix"). These containers are right next to beds filled with more of the same pansies, so we try to pull that same color into the other container for continuity.

August in Georgia is Not for The Faint of Heart

According to the television news anchors, this isn't officially the "Dog Days of Summer," but you couldn't tell that by the weight of the air as I walked around the garden. Some of the more delicate plants have retired until the cooler weather of September, but there are a few hardy plant souls out there that are just loving this heat!

From the top: The liriope earns its keep in August with those great purple spikes; "Honeycomb" Buddleia; Paniculata Hydrangeas; Crocosmia, and the Turtleheads that are just starting to break into bloom.

An Island Garden

If you’re reading this, you know that we visited Celia Thaxter’s garden last week, after wanting to do so for many years. In a nutshell, the garden is located on Appledore, an island about 6 miles off the coast of Maine/New Hampshire. It is on an island managed by Cornell and UNH, and is only open for tours eight days each year; we were finally able to make all of the components of our lives come together to visit the garden this year!

The short version of the story is that Celia’s father opened a grand Victorian resort hotel on the island in the mid 1800’s, and she developed this garden over the course of many years, primarily to furnish fresh cut flowers for the hotel. She wrote about it in her book, “An Island Garden,” which was published in 1894, a few months before she died. The garden was abandoned for many decades, and then restored about 25 years ago; it is now planted and maintained by a group of volunteers (and UNH), exactly as Celia had maintained it. There are many paintings of this garden by impressionist artist Childe Hassam in museums around the world, and the book itself is available for purchase (or you can read it online at www.digital.library.upenn.edu/women/thaxter/garden/garden.html.)

For anyone who is a passionate gardener, this is definitely a trip worth taking! Just to get an idea of Celia Thaxter’s passion, go to the online version (or the print version) and read her interpretation of the thunderstorm hitting her island and garden, on page 105. In other parts of the story, she relates going outside at 4 AM in her Victorian nightdress to squish slugs and encase them in salt! It’s really quite a fun read, and can be handled cover to cover in a few hours.
On a practical note, there were some extraordinary flowers in the small garden, and I’m sure my photos don’t do them justice, but here’s a few of the shots.

Some Blooms from this Weekend

Here are some shots from Saturday morning at the big house, with a little editorial, as well.

First, the Echinaceas are literally buzzing these days, as you can see.

Anthony Waterer Spirea is not a favorite shrub of mine, since I think it is "done to death" in most landscapes, but for these few weeks, I have to admit the show is pretty amazing.

Lastly, however "pedestrian" they might be, Annabelles are still one of my all time favorite hydrangeas. Between the big house and my own garden, there are several cultivars of macrophyllas, serattas, and oakleafs; there are none that I would want to part with, but Annabelles still hold a special spot in my heart as the first hydrangea I grew myself. There is something very simple and lovely about Annabelle in my mind.

The Stepchild Gets Mulch...Finally!

• I wasn't working at the big house or the penthouse today, so it seemed the perfect time to actually work in my own garden. Since I've been meaning to put out pinestraw mulch since March or April, it only makes me about six weeks behind schedule. Fortunately my home garden tends to fall into the categories of "eclectic" and "eccentric," so I'm able to fall back upon that excuse.
  
  I think my home garden is perhaps an emotional response to working in very manicured gardens on a daily basis; "manicured" is definitely NOT an adjective most would use to describe my garden!
  
  Some possible reasons my home garden isn't considered "manicured":
  
• The 300 or so Cleome flowers that have self-seeded themselves since last year, coming up everywhere, including one growing in a crack in my driveway (I adore Cleome, but will definitely be putting out Preen next year);
  
• The New Dawn rose that finished blooming a couple of weeks ago, and is now so large that it threatens to topple its arbor or grab a small child who makes the mistake of walking by (or both);
  
• My Herbal lawn. When asked if I have zoysia, Bermuda, St. Augustine, or Fescue, I simply reply, "Yes;" (But it stays green year round......)
  
• My unique version of Botanical Latin names. I'm not sure why the AHS doesn't list, "Dad's Yellow Iris," "Alice's Monarda," and "Not Ogon Spirea," in their publications.
  
• The fact that my pansies are still in the ground, and actually still blooming their little blue hearts out; The IRS and summer annuals are supposed to be taken care of by April 15 in Atlanta.
  
  As could have been predicted, the rain starting pouring down after I had finished mulching about 25% of the garden beds.......why do I think I'm going to soon be seven weeks behind schedule?
  
  I'm trying very hard to care about being "behind schedule", really I am......
  

Some beautiful whites

Lots of things were blooming in the garden this weekend. I've come up with a few of my favorite whites, which are very cool looking to me when the temperatures are reaching 90 degrees in the sun!

Summer Containers

The summer containers are starting to fill out, and are coming into their own for the season. Here are a few shots from the cluster in the driveway at the Big House. It's in the shade most of the day, but the driveway has a whitewash over it, so it's very bright shade. The Australian Tree Fern has some beautiful new growth coming out, and we had a surprise Walking Iris bloom (typically we only see the blooms in winter in the greenhouse - I put the iris into this container for the texture of the leaves).

Deutzia is this Week's Favorite Plant

This week's favorite plant has to be the deutzia, which is blooming its heart out at the moment. For most of the year it just hangs out there, looking a bit like a forsythia or a spirea, but for these few weeks, it is just COVERED with beautiful delicate pink blooms. (The wide shot bleeds out the color, unfortunately)

I don't see it often in gardens, but it really is a great old standy, that I think deserves to be named, "Favorite Plant of the Week". It will go back to being a back of the garden framework plant soon, but for now it's the star of the show!

Horticulture Magazine

So without sounding like a complete egomaniac, I thought the blurb Horticulture magazine did was sorta cool......you'll notice that I managed to hide my fat body behind the beautiful gate outside the perennial garden at the Big House!

For some reason I seem to be the last person in America to receive the latest issues of Horticulture, so I had gotten several messages from people commenting that it was a great little article about roses and hydrangeas.

That being said, I am soooooo excited at the appearance of the hydrangeas this year, particularly after the late season freeze of 2007, and the crazy drought of 2007 and 2008. The Annabelles are covered with buds, as are most of the macrophyllas, though it's still a little early for them.

At my own house, the H. seratta "Preziosa" (Carol H's favorite) is already in full bloom, and it's quite pretty. I'll get a picture in a couple of days when it's peaking. I was walking through the garden today at the big house, as well as here at home, and noticed the oakleafs are already starting to show some bloom. It always reminds me of somone with a can of that spray whipped cream, seeing how high they can possibly pile the cream on the pie before it tips over.....how can you not just love them?

Some Spring Blooms

I pride myself on living a somewhat slow and "off the grid" life......clearly that's all fantasy on my part, since being without a cell phone for six hours and without a computer for a few days has put me into a complete state! Fortunately there is always the gardening to bring me back to the ground, and fortunately Chuck's camera isn't dead, as well.

Anyway, here are a few shots of what's in bloom over at the big house this week. Enjoy!

Top to Bottom:

Tradescantia "Sweet Kate"'

A Summer Container Just Starting to Flush Out;

Graham Thomas (a personal favorite) starting to show off;

White Foxglove in the Perennial Bed;

William Morris competing with Graham Thomas for the bloom show

(As always, click on the photo to enlarge)

Sometimes Even I am Left Speechless

My friends say that my personality is "animated," and as you might have discovered from reading this blog, I tend to go on about certain topics, and often venture off into thirty or forty different directions. Sometimes even I can be rendered speechless.

Yesterday afternoon I was doing some volunteer gardening for the Cobb Master Gardeners, at a place called The Center for Children and Young Adults. In a nutshell, it's a residential facility for kids (ages birth through 17), most of whom are from abusive or neglected backgrounds; as with most government facilities, they get "less than nothing" from the state budget, so they are hugely dependent upon donations of goods and services. Since 2001, Maureen Locke and Toni Moore (two amazing women and fellow MG's) have been working away there to develop gardens and gardening programs for the kids.

I had agreed to do the containers for the summer, including a number of pots that have been donated over the years, and a big fountain in the courtyard that no longer works or really holds water. I came with a somewhat disjointed collection of what annuals could be scrounged and what was in clearance at the garden center, intend upon making something presentable from the lot.

When I arrived, I met a young man who lives there, who wanted to help. Like lots of teenagers, he was fairly reserved, and it took some coaxing to engage him in conversation. We worked side by side for a while, me asking questions and him giving one word answers. I was careful not to pry, since I am clear that this young man has probably lived a life that I can only imagine.

Then I asked what he wanted to do with his life, and he said he wanted to be a landscaper. When I asked, "Why?" his face just lit up, and the tough guy persona disappeared in a flash.
He responded with, "Because the world is plain and not always pretty. I don't know why anyone wants to live with plain. I want to help people make their lives happy and beautiful."

In this young man's hands, the motley assembly of plants truly became beautiful; he placed each and every plant with such care, getting up a few times to stand back and view the large fountain from the angle visitors and residents of the Center would see it. For the rest of the time we worked, we were in sync, as he quietly questioned his choices of plants and looked for reassurance.

I have the pleasure of working in some pretty fabulous gardens on a daily basis, and am always aware of how lucky I am to do what I do for a living. I must say, though, that the defunct fountain filled with "step child plants" is one of the most beautiful containers I've worked on this season. I can't wait to see how it fills in over the next few months. (He is going to handle watering and maintaining it).

Container Mania!

We are currently in the midst of "container mania" at the big house, which means there are a gazillion things in flats all about the pool. I've slowly been chipping away at the major containers, and the first of the spring bedding plants are going into the ground! I am so excited with the "Honey Bee Lantana," with muted pinks, peaches, soft yellows, and whites all on the same plants! That's being planted in the beds under the crape myrtles, where nothing else has the stamina to fight the roots of the trees. Photos to come once it fully opens up.

People keep asking me about container combinations I'm using this year, so I'll get them up on here in the next few days. I'm a big believer that even with the same plants, every arrangement is different, since there is inevitably a different container, and a different "designer's eye" involved. I've borrowed some of my favorite combinations from friends, and find it flattering when people ask me to do the same.

One of my favorites so far for this year: Lion's Head Japanese Maples (Acer palmatum "Shishigashira"), underplanted with "Bonfire" Begonias (Begonia boliviensis "Bonfire"), finished with Creeping Jenny(Lysimachia nummularia "Aurea"). Very simple, very clean, very elegant, and really shows off the tree, which is the whole point.

Some Photos from Friday Morning

I've still not figured out how to put text directly with each photo, but here are some updates as of Friday morning. It was chilly and overcast, with all of the plants still covered with morning dew.

From top to bottom: A Rubra Dogwood blossom; the "Heuchera Village" made from all of the heucheras moved out of winter containers and planted in the scilla bed; a closeup of the Doublefile Viburnum (AKA Favorite Tree), and the Abraham Darby that was planted a couple of weeks ago. (It was under heat all winter, so is very early this year, and the fragrance is just unbelievable!)

What is up with the Weather???

Today started very cold, but by midafternoon was in the high 60's and absolutely glorious! I'm finally convinced that spring is here to stay, after the brief snow showers yesterday afternoon.
Truly, if someone had been out of town for the past two days, they would never have believed that it was that cold.

Fortunately it didn't get "crazy cold" until around 5 AM where I live and work, so we were spared a lot of freeze damage. We were also lucky to have very high winds for the past couple of days, which doesn't allow the frost to settle. I was really afraid for the budded peonies and hydrangeas, but all looked really good this morning.

At the Big House garden, we were able to shut the heat off in the greenhouse and actually leave the door slightly ajar. Some of the most tender things like coleus, tomatoes, and the like are still tucked into the warmest corners, but it's time for some of the sturdier plants to start getting used to being outdoors. In the middle of the afternoon, the exhaust fans came on, indicating it was hitting 90 degrees in the greenhouse for the first time in months!

I was concerned about some of the new roses that got planted last week, but my "rose lady" thought they would be just fine, and she was right on the mark! The Abraham Darby's that went in last week (they had been in heated greenhouses at the grower until that point) are just covered with huge super fragrant blossoms. It's been such an interesting year with weather, I'm still amazed at the combination of late daffodils, late camellias and early roses all blooming at the same time. The combination of fragrances is really overwhelming, with the HEAVY fragrance of the hollies mixed with the roses. Add in the sight of Eastern Bluebird, Goldfinches and Cardinals all at the same cluster of feeders, and it's the icing on the cake!

Lastly, since I know you're all dying to know, Favorite Tree (doublefile viburnum) came through the freeze without a blemish....you can all relax and get on with your day!

The Releasing of the Roses

Since the horse fans have "The Running of the Roses" every May in Louisville, it only seems appropriate that we have "The Releasing of the Roses" in metro Atlanta.

I never knew it was such a big deal until I went to Autumn Hill Nursery this afternoon to pick up the new roses for "Missus." It was like a mad house there, with all of these people picking up roses! I almost got into it with the chick from Sandy Springs who though she was going to switch the tag on my tree form Neptune with hers! (The neighbors won't be hearing from her any time soon.........)

For those of you who don't know Autumn Hill, it is a really awesome nursery in the Hickory Flat area of Cherokee County, where all of those other growers and nurseries are. Autumn Hill is where to go if you're looking for some more unusual things (Cliftonia, Carolina Silver Bell, unusual perennials, etc.), and a great collection of high end containers, fountains, and such.

Pictures will follow once the new Abraham Darby is in place next to the Graham Thomas!

They're Not Invasive! They're Exuberant!

I was walking through my own garden this morning with a cup of coffee, just sort of roaming (as much as one can "roam" on a half acre). It was too wet to work in someone else's garden today, since the skies were opening every fifteen minutes. As I looked around, I realized that I have accumulated lots of those dreaded plants that every garden snob hates; I like to call them "exuberant," instead of invasive.

The Akebia is already half way up the poles of the pergola, and the scent was awesome. It's one of those things that garden snobs say, "You grow that???" To add insult to injury, I have porcelain vine (AKA crazy weed) growing up the other pole (that's it in the picture above). I have never found anything else with such beautiful berries.

I seem to now have six forsythia bushes growing in different spots. Is there anything as happy in the gray of winter? I planted two, and don't truly know where the others came from, but they aren't bothering anyone, certainly not me.

Then there is the Mahonia, with those awesome butter yellow blossoms in January, followed by the berries than look like hanging clumps of blue grapes until the birds get them. The Eleagnus ("Ugly Agnes") really needs a good haircut, since she's looking more like Medusa, with those gangly shoots that appear out of nowhere, and reach out to grab small children. (I haven't seen the little boy from next door recently......)

The huge clumps of Yellow Cannas (I would love to say they're a "cultivar," but they're just yellow) seem to swell more each year. Another plant that gets zero attention from me, and blooms its heart out in summer.

I tell people I'm going to thin out some of the yarrow this year, since the clumps now run together in various shades and colors, but I'm really not....one can never have too much yarrow.

I was excited to see all of the new sprouts of Verbena Bonarensis, which I like to think of as "punctuation marks" around the perennial bed. This is a plant that everyone should have in their garden somewhere. Just buy one, since you'll have ten next year!

If Alice's Cleome and the Verbena B. ever cross-pollinate, I'll have no choice but to move!

Celia Thaxter's Garden

I finally was able to make a reservation to see Celia Thaxter's garden!

For many years I've heard about this famous garden on Appledore Island, off the coast of Maine, but have never been able to arrange my schedule to accommodate a visit. It is a challenge to reach (in my case, a plane to a car to a boat), and is only open eight days a year for tours, on eight consecutive Thursdays in the summer.

I have a mild issue with seasickness on some of these boats, but even if I'm carrying a brown paper bag with me, I'm going to see this! The garden was recreated in 1977, based upon the exact plan and plants that Celia Thaxter put there in 1893.

This is one of those cases of following my passion. There is something oddly magical about this place for me, though I've never been there. On a recent trip to the Birmingham Museum of Art (in Alabama of all places), I fell in love with an oil painting, which turned out to be of this garden. I'm sure it's destiny!

I won't have any updates or photos until July, but they're coming!

A Bit of Spring Cleaning

After a weekend of cold drizzly rain (which we desperately needed), it was a treat to be in the garden today in the warm sun. It got into the high 60's, and was the perfect day to do some "spring cleaning" in the vegetable garden and the big perennial beds. Can you believe we're only a month from planting summer annuals?

The blueberries are positively covered with blooms, which are pretty in the walled garden, since everything else there is either still dormant or just starting to grow for spring.

I managed to pull out some of the winter cabbages, which had started to bolt with this warm weather, and are developing that funky odor that occurs when they start their decline. Time to move the last of the "Antique Shades" pansies from the nursery area to the displays at the front of the house, since it still needs to look good for another month before the spring things arrive. They are the perfect color for the brick of the house, but a challenging cultivar that needs lots of babying.

Took the broom to the creeping fig that covers the wall in the garden; it starts to look pretty ratty at this time of year, so the broom makes quick work of brushing away the dead leaves, exposing the new growth; it was exciting to have to tiptoe through the spears of asparagus that have just started popping up in the past couple of days! One of the luxuries of being the gardener is standing in the garden, in the silence, in the sun, eating the first stalk of the season's asparagus......

I was raking away the last of the autumn leaves from the vegetable beds (we leave a light covering there for the winter), and discovered the tiny little shoots of sweetpeas around the base of the tuteurs....I can't wait to see them start racing up the slats in the next couple of weeks!

Across the gravel walkway, the peonies are showing their heads (one in a particularly hot spot is about six inches high already), so I got to put out their cages for another spring show. Peonies always make me smile, thinking of my grandmother calling them "Pee-OH-nies" with the New York accent that still came through, even 70 years after leaving her childhood home.

I finished my day giving a haircut to the "Sunny Yellow" Knockout Roses that arrived a few weeks ago, grooming them to go into containers at the pool in a few weeks. There is something magical about spring, when you can literally watch things grow right in front of your eyes!

Leave the dreaded leaf blowers and power mowers in the garage for just another week! Sit back and enjoy the simplicity of the spring garden.....and look for those first spears of asparagus!

PS....The sakurafubuki is getting closer!

Sakurafubuki!

"Sakurafubuki" is the Japanese term for the blizzard of cherry blossoms that occurs every spring. If you know me personally, you'll understand that this is one of those bizarre sorts of things that I just HAVE to know!

Anyway, I was walking through the garden this afternoon as I was finishing for the day, amazed at the things that have visibly grown in the past few days. It's been very warm in Atlanta, and as my friend Carolyn said, "Everything is looking like a big Easter basket!" I was walking under the grove of Yoshino cherry trees that are behind the greenhouse, looked up, and was so excited to see blossoms on one of the branches. Not buds, mind you, but full blown blossoms!

It's not exactly the Sakurafubuki that will come in a few weeks, but it's definitely on its way! When it happens for a couple of weeks every spring, it reconfirms for me what magic there is in gardening!

I will definitely get a photo this year from under the trees (in the midst of the "blizzard"), but here's one from last year that shows just how awesome this sight is!

If you don't have Yoshino cherry in your garden, go out NOW and buy one.....or twelve!

The Battle of the Fragrances

It's been in the high 60's and mid 70's for the past several days, and as much as I know that we'll get zapped with at least one more good cold blast, I can't help but be in the garden as much as possible. Everything is budding, I'm popping Claritin, and I can finally see the warmth on the horizon.

Yesterday I was at the big house cutting back the Jurrasic Park-sized Fatsia japonica, and walked on a path that goes between the house and the garage. As a result of the warm weather, there are just dozens of white Dutch hyacinths blooming there. We planted them last fall in three rows in front of the gardenias which will bloom later; in fact I mixed the white (L'Innocence) with a butter yellow (City of Haarlem), but only the white are blooming so far. In any case, the fragrance is so awesome I kept making excuses to take that path again.

When I got home, I had to pass the Daphne Odora which is planted at the base of the front steps. It is my favorite miserable plant (I'm sure it will up and die any day now), but while it's in bloom, there is nothing better! The fresh, almost citrusy fragrance is such a welcome note in the early spring.

Once in the house I opened the kitchen window, and was met with the most wonderful fragrance from the Burkwood Viburnum that is planted outside that window. It's really nothing to look at, and I honestly planted it because it was inexpensive and would form a hedge between me and a neighbor's yard; the early spring fragrance is another one that is pretty amazing! This is one that you need to have in your garden, and keep it somewhere fairly close to the house where you can enjoy the fragrance before real gardening season starts.

Back out to the garden again, still working to clean up some of the mountain of leaves that have fallen over the winter.......and to see what else is blooming!