Tonight I'm sitting here at my laptop with a very achy back. I was cropping and editing some photos I took today when I zoomed in on this shot of a Astrantia (masterwort) blooming in my garden. I had such fun cropping and zooming that I decided to play with a few more images. So here's some up close and personal shots of things in my garden.
The white Astilbe in my shade bed is pristine white. I grow two white varieties, this one has dark green foliage and I wonder if it's Astilbe 'Deutschland'.
Geranium 'Jolly Bee' against the Hosta 'Aristrocrat'. What a combination!
Plain and simple, Coreopsis 'Zagreb' is so easy to grow and I love it so much better than 'Moonbeam' that flops all over the place.
Spirea 'Little Princess' has a new leaf on life. It clashed something awful with another plant growing next to it so I took it out and moved it to the woods where it promptly died. There was a small rooted branch left in the old spot and now there's a perfect shrub there again. The clashing plant up and died a year later so I'm happy to have this beauty back again.
Just can't get enough of the shade loving Japanese fern (Athyrium niponicum 'Pictum')
Thalictrum glaucum blooms are as tall as me but with all the rain we've been getting their flopping all over the place. Tonight I finally tied them up and had to shoot this closeup.
Yet another Filipendula bloomign in the garden. This one has a finer cut leaf and a deeper colored bloom. I have to hunt around for the cultivar name.
And last but not least, daylily 'Itsy Bitsy Spider' blooming it's first bloom and if you take a look at those amazing buds you'll know it's going to bloom like crazy!
Once upon a time there was a bicycle. It was a happy bicycle, it lived in a beautiful neighborhood on the north shore of Long Island. One day the bicycle owners decided they no longer wanted this bicycle and put it out at the curb for the garbage men to collect.
Luckily a woman spotted the bicycle before the garbage truck arrived. She remembered her friend wanted an old bicycle for the garden and this bicycle looked like it might be perfect. She was a good friend, she loaded the bicycle in her car and brought it to her friends house.
The bicycle was placed in a lovely section of the garden. It's new owner place a nice straw basket on the handlebars and a birdhouse on the back carrier.
Within days a little wren came and made a nest in the birdhouse. Soon the bicycle was home to a clutch of baby birds. It was happy.
This is what a baby wren looks like (the one on the right :-)) the first day it left the birdhouse. This particular birdhouse has been an excellent shelter, raising many, many wren babies.
Many years later the bicycle was still in the garden, still holding up the birdhouse. The straw basket had rotted away and unfortunately there was only a metal basket to place on the handlebars.
Along came another friend. One of the best parts of gardening are the amazing friends one makes with other gardeners. This friend had found a straw bicycle basket waiting at the curb for the garbage truck. She knew it would be perfect for the bicycle. She was a good friend, she picked up the basket and brought it over to the bicycle's home.
The bicycle's owner went out to put the new basket on the bicycle. She brought along a shovel because there was a large poke weed right in front of the bicycle that was driving her crazy. As she got near the bicycle she heard that sound, cheep cheep cheep, the birdhouse was filled with wren babies. She decided that the poke weed and the basket could wait for a week or two until the babies could fly.
Two days later the owner went out to check on the baby wrens. Horror of horrors, the bird house was not there!!! Carefully creeping around the garden bed the owner saw the birdhouse was laying upside down on the ground. Worst of all, three huge squirrels were trying to get in the birdhouse while a tiny wren was frantically dive bombing all three squirrels.
The bicycle was sad. The owner was mad! She started to flap her arms and loud sounds came from her as she chased those nasty squirrels across the neighbors yard. (Upon reflection, she hopes that nobody actually witnessed her loss of composure.)
She carefully lifted the birdhouse from the ground. As she slowly turned it upright, the baby wrens started cheeping up a storm! Hooray!!! They were alive and well!
Only minutes had passed when the owner saw the wren arrive with a juicy green inch worm. Breakfast time for the baby birds.
The wrens were happy. The bicycle was happy. The owner was happy. The pokeweed was happy too.
In yesterday's blog I wrote about a perennial that has stolen my heart. There were two perennials that were amazing in the garden. This is the second one.
The strange thing is that although I always tell people to catalog their purchases with lots and lots of digital images, I can't find a single image of this beauty. In fact, I don't remember buying it but it's such a large healthy clump that it certainly isn't a volunteer.
I grow other Centaureas so I know what plant family I'm dealing with. Doing a little googling I'm pretty sure this is Centaurea nigra. Now I just wish I could remember where I bought it because I just have to get me some more! (Kim, do you think I got it at Agway? Did you get one??)
Oh no, I think I've fallen head over heels, madly in love with a plant in my garden.
Our lousy cool wet morning slowly turned into a beautiful day. As the weather improved, we started having visitors come to see our open garden. It wasn't until the mid afternoon that I really noticed this plant and then I just couldn't stop visiting it!
One of the first blogs I wrote was about this plant. It was a mystery plant to me, I bought it at a local nursery at the insistence of a gardening friend. Luckily she remembered the name, Filipendula 'Kakome'. (That post is the second to last post under the label "Plant Profile")
When I first planted this in my garden I had no idea what kind of conditions it would need. I planted it in extremely dry shade. Since it's a semi-shade, moisture lover, I'm thrilled that it survived in my garden. While I noticed it before, it wasn't until I moved a piece into a sunnier spot near our sprinkler that I saw what this baby could do. This photo is of the piece that's still in the dry shade area.
Here's a photo from the back side of the sun border with the Filipendula in the lower left corner.
Tonight as I downloaded my photos on to the computer I realized that I took nine different shots of this bloom. I guess I was totally smitten ;-
It looks like cotton candy with little pearl tufts rising above it. Sigh... what a dream flower...
Oh yes, there was another new flower that blew me away today so stay tuned, I'll post about it tomorrow.
Well how's this? I spent the last three days with the wonderful women in my local garden club. First we set up our flower show, then we exhibited in our flower show, I sold plants at our flower show and today at the end we broke down the flower show.
Talk about exhaustion!
The good news? I took home a nice amount of first place ribbons including my first ever "Growers Choice" award and the "Horticultural Excellence award" for one of my trough gardens (I entered three in the show, all three won first place in different classes).
This photo shows me at my sales booth, we should have taken it after I first set up and the booth was loaded down with plant material. The good news though was that at the end of the show I had very little plant material left!
Tomorrow we are hosting an open garden here. Cross your fingers and wish me better weather. I've been soaked through at my sales booth for three days in a row.
Yesterday when I went out to the mailbox, I found a surprise. There was a small package waiting for me. I knew immediately that my shipment from Squaw Mountain Gardens had arrived.
You can see how small the package is by looking at the standard sized scissor next to it.
Now I wasn't expecting a huge package by any means, Squaw Mountain Gardens specializes in Sempervivums, Sedums and so on.
Opening the package I was in for another surprise. The box was filled with little paper bags. I had never seen plants shipped this way.
Looking inside the paper bags I found the Sempervivum (hens & chicks) that I had ordered. In all cases there was more than one plant in the bag, sometimes there were quite a few in there!
I suddenly realized that a strong gust of wind could take those bags and scatter the Semps all over the patio. It was time for action and I quickly made up a bunch of pots for those new babies.
Planting instructions were in the box and they were wonderfully clear.
I simply pressed the rosettes against the soil, I didn't bury them. This part literally took a few minutes in total. Not one little chick was allowed to escape. There's a tiny one here near the bottom lip of the pot.
Don't forget the name tags! Some of the varieties I ordered because I couldn't resist the name such as this cultivar 'Legolas'.
Apparently when I was looking at the photos on the website I must have been taken by the cobweb varieties because almost all the ones I ordered were webbed.
Here they are all potted up. I can tell you that I am absolutely thrilled with the shipment and would highly recommend this company for those of you looking for new Sempervivums for your trough gardens.
The most well behaved plant in my garden has to be Aruncus aethusifolius. The plant catalog at my desk here describes it perfectly: "10" compact mounds of dense, finely cut foliage, miniature spires of creamy white".
It forms a perfectly round mound, looking as if a garden gnome came upon it in the middle of the night and trimmed it.
Right now (June 10th) it is in full bloom. The blooms last a pretty long time, I'll be watching carefully this year to see how long they are here. Gradually they fade to a tan color and I just leave them on the plant since they remain nice and neat.
I also love the fact they they will scatter a few seeds this way although I never get as many seedlings as I'd like to get.
Last year I added two more types of Aruncus to my garden. This photo shows Aruncus 'Misty Lace' which is described as a " 2' X 2', compact and heat tolerant, deep green Astilbe-like foliage topped with delicate pure white plumes.
Sure enough it too is behaving as perfecly as it's little sister. It's just a bit larger than the athusifolius variety and has even more blooms.
I have this one in part shade, it gets lots of direct morning sun but no afternoon sun and it is as happy as can be.
Here's another angle, I love how it looks against the deep purple foliage of the Ligularia 'Britt Marie Crawford'.
The last variety of Aruncus in my garden is Aruncus dioicus which is the large version. 4-6' tall giant cream plumes in July, foliage looks like a giant Astilbe is just about the perfect description. What the catalog doesn't tell you is how wonderful this looks in the landscape.
For many years I walked past the pots of this giant Aruncus at nursery centers. It looks awful in pots. The blooms sprawled all over and seemed dingy in color. In the garden though it's a whole different story. The creamy white is just dreamy and the soft arching blooms are so much better than I ever imagined.
Sitting here typing on my laptop I can look out my dining room window and see it in full bloom. It looks magnificent and I hope it too gives me some seedlings like the athusifolius variety has done.
Peas peas, heavenly peas. I love to eat raw peas and pea pods. Last year was the first year in many that I decided to try to grow a few vegetables. I had huge success with the peas in containers, enough so that I could munch a nice big handful each day while working in the garden.
This year I planted two varieties. Burpee Snowbird and Burpee Sugarsnap Peas. The pea you see here is the Snowbird which is just covered with blooms and pods.
See the pretty white flowers? Yesterday I stuck my nose up against them and inhaled. Yummmmm, they smelled delicious!
Now for the magic part. Here's how I grew my seeds this year. My potager is still under construction so I planted the pea seeds in large black plastic containers. I made my own pea supports with long branches I cut from my Physocarpus 'Diablo' (purple nine bark).
Take a good look here, do you see what I see? The Physocarpus has leafed out! How cool is this?
Now for the ultimate, not only did the cut Physocarpus branches leaf out, they are currently blooming. I can't tell you how happy this makes me (well, ok, I just told you ;-)
Once or twice a year I remember to go upstairs and take photos from our bedroom windows. I love to look at these photos years later and see the progression of the gardens.
This is the view from my front bedroom window. I can see straight up the driveway. The funny thing is I rarely look out my bedroom window, I guess I'm outside more than I'm inside!
My daughter Emily has a better view, she can't see all the way out to the street but she has a more sideways view of the front perennial borders that flank the driveway.
My bedroom has windows that look out the back of the house too. Here's the newly opened swimming pool. Still too cold to swim in but who cares, at least it looks lovely!
At the front of the swimming pool is my little rock garden. If I could change one hardscape location here in my yard it would be the pool and patio area. It's just so big, rectangular and of course, smack dab in the middle of the yard.
I zoomed in on the back shade border with my adorable shed and my neighbors hideous white vinyl fence.
One last look at the opposite corner where I make my black gold (compost of course!).
If you look carefully you can see Calie-the-wonder-doodle taking one of her many laps around the pool patio.
This evening I took lots and lots of photos. The next week is chock full of gardening plans. My local garden club is hosting a flower show this Friday and Saturday at the Historic Kissam House in Huntington Village. I've got a ton of things to get ready but at least I've got lots of photos and ideas to share with you when I find a moment or two.
Today's Perennial Spotlight is focused upon a charming little creeper, Cymbalaria muralis which is known locally as Kenilworth Ivy.
These sweet little plant was given to me many years ago by a neighbor, just a little slip that I had in a pot near my garage. A piece escaped from the pot and rooted by the door. When I was looking for plants that would grow in my rock wall, I removed a piece and tucked it into a crevice out back. Over the past four years the Cymbalaria worked it's way around the corner of the raised bed. It doesn't like the sunny spots, just the most shaded corner of the wall so I really didn't have to do anything to contain it.
Yesterday I decided that it needed a haircut. It looks so lush and healthy here but it was hiding some of the elements of the rock wall that I really like.
See, now you can see the boulder that we worked into the plan.
It was really simple to cut back the Cymbalaria, I just used a basic pair of scissors. The whole area took less than an hour and I also added lots of compost and top dressing to the bed at the same time.
Rather than cut too much, I left some areas with little tufts of Cymbalaria. I know that it will grow back again soon. Look at what I found underneath, a nice little Sempervivum rosette that will now get some much needed afternoon sun.
I think I'll pot up some Cymbalaria and add it to the sales table. Don't you think it's sweet?
Tonight I'm sitting here at my laptop with a very achy back. I was cropping and editing some photos I took today when I zoomed in on this shot of a Astrantia (masterwort) blooming in my garden. I had such fun cropping and zooming that I decided to play with a few more images. So here's some up close and personal shots of things in my garden.
The white Astilbe in my shade bed is pristine white. I grow two white varieties, this one has dark green foliage and I wonder if it's Astilbe 'Deutschland'.
Geranium 'Jolly Bee' against the Hosta 'Aristrocrat'. What a combination!
Plain and simple, Coreopsis 'Zagreb' is so easy to grow and I love it so much better than 'Moonbeam' that flops all over the place.
Spirea 'Little Princess' has a new leaf on life. It clashed something awful with another plant growing next to it so I took it out and moved it to the woods where it promptly died. There was a small rooted branch left in the old spot and now there's a perfect shrub there again. The clashing plant up and died a year later so I'm happy to have this beauty back again.
Just can't get enough of the shade loving Japanese fern (Athyrium niponicum 'Pictum')
Thalictrum glaucum blooms are as tall as me but with all the rain we've been getting their flopping all over the place. Tonight I finally tied them up and had to shoot this closeup.
Yet another Filipendula bloomign in the garden. This one has a finer cut leaf and a deeper colored bloom. I have to hunt around for the cultivar name.
And last but not least, daylily 'Itsy Bitsy Spider' blooming it's first bloom and if you take a look at those amazing buds you'll know it's going to bloom like crazy!
