Why do I garden?

Why do I garden? Simply, it makes me feel good. Strike that, it makes me feel great!

Sunburns, stiff knees, aching back, poison ivy blisters, wasp stings, mosquito bites and a host of related pains doesn't change this. Gardening makes me feel incredible.

So, it's no wonder that whimsy in the garden makes me smile. I just adore finding out that others enjoy gardening as much as I do. The garden owner who put this in her garden told me that it was very theraputic. When ever she ran into this mean woman in her town, she'd come home and dunk this head under the water!




Of course when I saw this bird house I just had to have it. It's been in the garden for four years now but nobody's moved in :-(

I saw this garden swimmer while on a daylily tour. Isn't she delightful?

P.S. Thanks Mary Anne for teaching me how to reduce my images!

Planting Fields Arboretum

The Coe Estate at Planting Fields

Today seems like a good day to try something new. I'm adding a label for my posts to see if it changes the layout here. The photos in this post were taken in June 06 by my daughter Emily who was 12 years old at the time. She had come with me to Planting Fields where I attended a meeting of the Long Island Daylily Society. Instead of sitting inside on this stunning day, Emily took my digital camera and went on a tour of the grounds.

This first shot must have been taken near the Horticultural Center.

Here's the first of many arches we'll see.

What would an arboretum be without some specimen trees?

Just one example of the lovely statuary you can find at Planting Fields.

Be still my beating heart. These roses are amazing!

Oh what beautiful colors and textures.

Ok, not daylilies but what lovely yellow lilies.

Closer...

Closest yet!

Wish this was a scratch and sniff photo. These rose arches are stunning.

Up close and personal with one of the rose arbors.

Ha! I wish I had the name of this handsome fellow. I'll take a guess and say it's Eremurus, the fox tail lily?

Fairy roses tumbling all around.

Fairy roses and a Kousa dogwood.

Goldilocks would love this place!

Truly, a cottage garden.

Yet another arch, this one is all green.

What a nice place to sit for a while.

Here I thought I knew every inch of Planting Fields and yet Emily found a pond I have never seen. It's hidden well, but we've got some clues to it's location.

Mr. Turtle is sunning himself on a log.

Mr. Turtle and the goldfish have a lovely lily to gaze upon.


My smart girl took this photo and also took a picture of the garden name. So now I can tell you that this is the Heather garden. That sweet pond is hidden at the top of this photo.

Arches again, these are of stone.

This little pond is in a great spot, it just needs some more planting attention.

What a cool roof-line!

On beautiful days, one often comes upon wedding parties taking photos at the arboretum.

The End
(thanks Emily!)

Green with Envy

How apropos the term "Green with Envy" is when applied to gardening.

If you are a gardener and you visit any other gardens, the time will come when you will see a sight that just blows you away. Luckily I get to see lots of gardens and I confess, many a time I come away wishing I could grow something that I've seen in that garden.

Sitting here in my chair, doing my virtual gardening thing (hey, it's 12 degrees outside and a sheet of ice) my eye was caught by this series of photos. I can honestly say that of all the things I've seen so far on my various garden tours, this one structure and it's planting scheme has to be my all time favorite. If there's one thing I could have in my garden tomorrow, it would be this little house, lock stock and barrel.

I guess you'd call this building a Potting Shed and the world's most perfect potting shed it must be! It's quite small, just enough space to step inside and store some of your larger tools. But the outside, oh my, every inch of this shed is a delight to see.

The roof is what blew me away at first, chock-a-block full of succulents, Sedum, Sempervivum and all kinds of luscious goodies.

Then there's the mirror, perfectly placed on one side to reflect more loveliness out in the garden.



On the opposite side I saw my first living wreath. It was so inspirational that I've made many of these now on my own. At least it's something that I can easily do here.

Of course the perfect potting shed has to have a potting area. As you can see in the photo here, one side of the building has a built in potting table and lots of clay pots to play with.

As a final touch, the plantings all around, leading up to this building and along the walkway were just perfect. Wonderful texture, delightful color and a smorgasbord of delicious plant material.

What a perfect place. When I tried to decide which photos to post here, I couldn't make up my mind so I've included them all.

Hope you love it as much as I do. Oh yes, I believe I saw this building on a garden tour here on Long Island at a commercial place called "Beds & Borders".

What's a Filipendula without a name?

Filipendula hoosiewatsis?

Phooey, don't you just hate it when you lost the name of a plant? It drives me crazy when this happens, it's not like I don't know how important it is to keep the name of any specific plant.


About 5 years ago I was visiting Fox Hollow Farm here in South Huntington. Mary Kay always had the coolest perennials available there and many a time she urged me to buy something I had passed over. While I can't say I loved everything she pointed out, I have to admit that 90 percent of what she chose turned out to be amazing. Like the time she twisted my arm to buy a flat of left over primrose. OK, maybe she didn't have to twist too hard :-)


Well, one day she pointed out this little 4" pot. There were only two plants like it and she told me that I should make sure I took one home. Mary Kay is one of those plant people who have botanical names tripping off her tongue at the drop of a hat. Me, I'm pretty good with those names too, certainly not a Mary Kay, maybe that's why I want to pull my hair out when I've lost the name.

My luck, there was no label in the pot, and just minutes later when I got home all I remembered was that it was a Filipendula. Well, I had never grown a Filipendula and didn't even bother to look up it's requirements. For some reason I thought that it was a shade plant and so I planted it in my front (very dry) shade bed.

It's taken a few years (no wonder considering where I planted it) but this plant has grown into a huge, mature, lovely clump. This year I had several visitors while it was in bloom and all of them expressed surprise at the spot I had chosen to plant it. I guess I goofed on that one but instead of up and dying on me, this Filipendula has really put on a show.

This year it's really due to be divided as it's doing that donut thing (growing into a big circle with a hole forming in the middle). I'd really like to take a nice piece and put in a spot where it will shine but it sure would help if I knew what I was dealing with.

If you have any ideas as to the full name of this plant and it's ideal conditions please post it as a comment here for everybody to see.

Eye Candy!

A feast for the Eyes
(for Maria)

Wow, we've been hammered all day with an ice storm. Being stuck inside the house I thought it would be a great time to look back at some of the photos taken during spring and summer. So curl up with me in front of this here monitor and join me in a tour of Old Country Gardens.

As you can see in the opening photo, we are set back quite far from the street. Our winding driveway is approximately 275 feet long. For the most part, there are perennial borders that run down both sides.


The first pair of gardens out by the street are bordered with a natural rock wall. Supposedly these boulders were taken out of the ground here when the foundation of the house was dug. Wish we had more of them! There are a number of tall oaks and other trees out by the street throwing lots of shade here. Because of one massive Maple tree, the roots suck any moisture out of the ground so we are dealing with dry shade. One of the hardest conditions for gardening.

I just adore sharing my garden with other folks and every season a few groups tour our small piece of paradise. This past summer I had the honor of being on the national tour for the American Hemerocallis Society (that's Daylilies for you botanically challenged folks). In that one week in July we had over 600 visitors to the garden.


Our house is an old fashioned colonial with a breezeway connecting it to the garage. This photo was taken from the breezeway looking up the driveway towards the street.


Here we can see the front sunny perennial borders and how they flank the driveway.


The grass isn't always greener on the other side of the fence. One day my neighbor commented that she didn't have to garden, she only had to look over the fence to see a beautiful sight. It made me wonder what my garden looked like from her side. What do you think? I think she's pretty lucky!


When we moved in to this house, the backyard was a landscapers nightmare. Everything was in the worst possible spot and without a six figure budget, there was no easy way to work around the poor design. Two things we had right away were a pool (way too large but hey, it's already there) and a pool house. By taking the ugly white chain link fence away from the pool, it looks much more inviting.


The same year we added a huge perennial border around the back of the pool to cover an ugly slope. Our land appears quite flat to the eye but when you build a structure as huge as this pool and patio, you quickly notice which way the land rolls.



The pool house or as we call it, the cabana is just now coming in to it's own beauty. It's really just a glorified shed, holding the pool filter and all the corresponding chemicals. That extra toilet and sink sure come in handy though when your feet are covered in mud and you don't want to come in to the house.

I took this photo in May and the plant material is still quite immature. It's a good example though because it also shows off the playground equipment that was waiting here for us. We think it came from the elementary school up the street that is now a senior assisted living center. When my daughters have friends over they all gravitate to that see-saw.


My first garden here was a row of daylilies and seedlings set out like a small farm plot in the back right corner of our yard. In the past two years it's been completely changed and is now a semi-formal herb garden.


The herbs have been a wonderful companion to over 100 spider and unusual form daylilies. Unfortunately many plants in this garden have been struggling from the roots of many huge black walnut trees just over the property line. This year I will move those glorious daylilies to the other perennial borders and plant more herbs and vegetables in this spot.

By the way, I just love the way the crushed seashells look in the walkway around the center bed here. My mother gathered them over many trips to our local beaches.


Out along the back of the property line I've been working on a massive shade garden. Unlike the shade out front, this garden is not dry at all. What a huge difference it makes to have moisture and occasional moments of full sun. The plants in this garden just thrive and have been growing with leaps and bounds. Time for some serious dividing this spring!


This is one last shot of the back shade garden and it shows something that I'm very unhappy with. White fences look great if they are put in the right location. There's nothing more charming than a white picket fence out in front of a lovely cottage garden. This six foot high vinyl white fence though is the bane of my garden. I've designed my garden so that you look at the plant material, not at the enormous un-natural fence. If I have a windfall of money in the next year or two I'm going to put back the stockade fence to hide this eyesore.

Well, it's time to get back to the real world of snow and ice. Stay tuned for more garden talk! Oh, Maria, thanks for suggesting I add more photos that show off the garden :-)