Foxglove Fantasy

This morning is the calm before the storm. It's cool, damp, overcast and perfect garden weather. The storm on the horizon is not a rain or wind storm, tomorrows forecast is for temperatures to soar to the mid 90's (35 celsius) and stay there for several days. Many of my poor spring perennials will surely suffer.

Right now our biennial Digitalis purpurea (Foxgloves) are bursting into bloom all over the garden. Luckily, I remember to let these beauties scatter seeds everywhere so I always have a large population of them. To be honest, I actually weed out many of them just before they begin blooming as I have too many of them!

In this opening photo I wonder if you can see the mutant scape coming up on this one plant. It's super fat and yet super thin. As it starts to bloom I will need to take more photos.

Here's a stepped back view of this area, you can see all the bloom scapes just beginning to open up their glorious flowers.

Further along in this part of the garden all the blooms are of a similar color. I try to remember to cut back the darkest purple blooms and only let the white and pale lavender blooms go to seed. The dark color though must be dominant as the majority of blooms are always dark purple.

Behind the biennial variety of Digitalis is the perennial sibling Digitalis lutea. It has pale yellow blooms and with the heatwave that is coming, I expect them to open up any day now.

I wish the perennial variety was a bit more prolific, I'm only up to three plantings of them so far.

In the herb bed are these huge white specimen. I could stand there for hours staring at them.

As a closing sneak peek, here's a Tradescantia (spiderwort) that just began blooming. I have no idea if this is a named variety or a seedling that popped up but the flowers are larger than any other in my garden and their color is wonderful.

So many gardeners have told me that they cannot get their foxgloves to reseed or reappear in their gardens. I guess my advice is to not cultivate the area near them or cover it with too much mulch. By the way, past experience tells me that they grow like crazy in a garden heavily amended with composted manure.

Do foxgloves grow for you?

Open Garden?

Today is the first Thursday in June. I was supposed to have an open garden this evening but it just won't be possible.

When I first had a garden, I'd give anything for people to come see my flowers. I used to joke and tell people that I'd grab pedestrians off the street and make them come see what was blooming that day.


As my gardens began to grow and I joined several different garden clubs, I found that I'd be asked to open my garden for a tour. At first it was just for my own club, but like a snowball going downhill, soon there were other clubs and organizations asking for a tour here.


Depending on the size of the group and the nature of the tour, there's quite a few things you can do to make the experience a success.


The first thing you need to think about, whether you have 5 people coming or 500, is where to direct somebody who desperately needs to use a toilet. Luckily for me we have a bathroom in the garden. Sometimes we call it the cabana but that's a pretty fancy name for this basic building. (click on the sidebar label that says "The Necessary Room" to read an old post from last year if you want to learn more about this spot)


The largest tour group I've hosted was 500 people who came when the national convention of the American Hemerocallis Society was here on Long Island in July of 06. Other people stopped by that week too so in total I had 600 visitors see the garden within 4 or 5 days.


One reason I try hard to maintain labels in my garden (even though they annoy me so much at other times) is to help educate visitors. Once you have more than a dozen people in the garden it's hard to answer everybody's questions. To make matters worse, it seems like that botanical name you know so well always slips your mind just as somebody points to that plant.

No matter the size of the group visiting your garden, there are some basic necessities you should think about. While food might not be on your list, at least consider putting out some kind of cool beverage. Even a simple pitcher of water with a lemon slice in it is acceptable.

Another extremely important thing is to provide seating, preferably in a shaded location. Chairs, benches, hammocks, whatever you have on hand will do. If you don't have enough chairs, consider asking a neighbor if you could borrow a few.

One thing I didn't plan on during our tour was selling plants. I always seem to have a multitude of things potted up since I'm such a propagation nut. After some inquiries from visitors, I simply put out a basket with a few dollar bills in it for starter change. Then I made up a sign with prices and let people take care of themselves. It worked like a charm.

My biggest piece of advice is don't stress out. Yes there will be a weed you forgot to pull or a shovel you suddenly find sticking out of one of your favorite beds. Try to remember that you see more faults than your visitors. They will be too busy looking at the glory of your garden.

Finally, to the people who took my gardening class, I'm so sorry I can't hold that open garden this evening. I have no way to contact anybody so I hope some of you check this blog out today. Unfortunately I have a lecture for new Board of Ed trustees that I must attend. My daughter (who could have conducted the tour without me) must attend a wake and my husband will be busy running back and forth with my younger daughter and her crazy rehearsal schedule.

I'd still like to have an open garden in the next week or two and invite the local bloggers who read my posts too. So stay tuned.

For those of you in different areas, do you ever hold an open garden?

Capturing a raindrop

This morning is dark but not dreary. While some people moan when it rains, as long as it's not pouring I'll take advantage of the elements and get out there and take some photos.

My simple camera doesn't focus well in these low light conditions so I might try this again as the sun comes up higher (even behind all these rain filled clouds). Still, here's some raindrops that I've managed to capture, beginning with raindrops on the Euphorbia polychroma that has finished blooming.

This is what the view out of the breezeway looks like. I don't think the black plastic will be killing too many weeds today.

The Baptisias are beginning their spectacular show. In fact, I had planned on writing a post just about them until the raindrops caught my fancy. Maybe tomorrow I'll focus on the Baptisias that I adore. This one is 'Twilite Prarieblues' which is brand new to my garden and just beginning to bloom.

Under the Baptisia 'Purple Smoke' is a St. John's wort shrub. Unfortunately juggling my camera and the umbrella left me no free hands to look for a name tag.

The herb garden still needs so much work but the back corner, nearest my neighbors stinky black walnut trees is starting to shape up with pots filled with herbs and veggies.

Still thinking you like white vinyl fences? Hopefully we're not too many years away from my dream of this area being filled with a white Rhododendron and backed by an Acer 'Bloodgood' seedling. The Acer (red maple) was only a foot tall two years ago and now is at least four feet tall. Two more years and it should cover much of that hideous fence. Won't it be the perfect backdrop for the white Rhododendron?

This is the Geranium cantabrigiense 'Karmina' that I dug and divided for our plant sale. I got 18-20 pots all together and just stuck the left over pieces back in the ground. I think this clump is 5 feet across already. Now that I know what I'm doing I expect that next year I will have more pots of 'Karmina' and it's paler sister 'Biokova' than you can possibly imagine.

It's a good day for muck shoes :-)

Thalictrum against the red twig dogwood is my idea of a great combination. Still, I need more Thalictrum for this to really shine and there must be a dozen plants there now.

This is the same area only without using the zoom lens. It's almost impossible to pick out that Thalictrum now but you sure can see how lovely the purple leaved Ligularia 'Britt Marie Crawford' looks.

Just a sneak peak at another Baptisia. This one stops me in my tracks with it's ghostly white blooms and gray foliage all shimmering with raindrops.

Finally, what's this? A surprise gift for me! How lovely, a fellow blogger left me a pot of that white Scilla that I had seen in the Shakespeare garden and coveted so much. Thank you!

So what do you do on rainy days?

State of the Art - Organic Weed Killer

Earlier this week I showed photos of this silly daisy that keeps seeding into my gravel driveway. No matter how many times I try to move the seedlings back on the garden side, they keep coming back on the wrong side.

As you can see, I just don't have the heart to kill them but there are lots of other weeds there too that I just don't want.

Here on Long Island we drink our ground water and we are surrounded by the ocean and sound. Anything we put on our ground runs off to poison all of our water supply. I'm not the worlds most "green" person but I have an issue with poisoning my piece of heaven.

In the past years I resorted to using Round-up in my driveway. You can only pull weeds for so long and then you give up. I can at least admit that I only used it if there was a big tour scheduled for here.

This year I decided I would no longer use round-up on my driveway. I just had to come up with a better solution. Last year I tried spraying vinegar on the plants but that only killed some of them. Some people are talking about mixing vinegar and salt. What! I don't think I'll be salting the earth around here, nope, not me.

Luckily, I found the perfect solution. A weed killer that kills everything as long as you have some patience. Here it is:


Black plastic spread on the ground on a hot sunny day will cook those weeds to death. Our temperatures aren't that hot yet so I've been leaving the plastic in place for three days and then moving it down to cover the next section.

This evening I thought to myself it might take all summer to kill the weeds in my 275 foot long driveway at which time I'd have to start all over again. Then it came to me...wait for it...how about buying some more plastic? It was a true "DUH" moment. I think I'll get myself a long roll of black plastic garbage bags. Roll them out and kill all the weeds in one fell swoop. Then I'll roll those bags up and use them for the trash.

I bet the weeds are trembling with fear right now.

On the Fly

On the fly this morning. Must go food shopping in order to eat breakfast! Then I'm off with Kim and her husband to find new and exciting perennials at our favorite nursery.

Will try to get back here this afternoon as I actually had a great idea I wanted to write about.

See ya!
Melanie

Rhododenron Glory

When we bought this house 12 years ago, there was very little landscaping. Although the house was built in 1960 and made to look like a much older house, there never was a gardener here.

We found quite a few yews (Taxus), many were dead or near death and the previous owner told us that they were dormant. Uh huh, pull my other leg too.

The one thing that was worth leaving was a magnificent stand of Rhododendrons along the Northeast corner of the house. Our acidic soil and the nearby wooded lot assures these shrubs that they get their favorite conditions.

This past spring we took out a hemlock that had been planted less than 2 feet (.5 meters) from the house. You can see the big hole left behind in the Rhododendrons. I predict it won't be too many years before they leap forward to fill in this spot now.


Looking closer at the hole you can see that there's already lots of new growth popping out.

Here's a view from the front, I just love the color up near our house as it accents the pink in our stone facade. We still need to add some plantings to the right of our stoop where you can see the weeping Japanese Maple.

I'll sign off with one last shot here at these beautiful flowers. The only thing I wish is that they also had a delicious scent. It's amazing to have this much bloom and not be able to smell a thing.

'All Gold'

This morning was overcast, damp and cool. Perfect weather for a garden walk-about. This one little bed in my garden is on the side of my pool and is often neglected. There shouldn't be any daylilies in this garden. The way the surrounding trees shade this bed, the daylily flowers face the sun at an angle that's almost impossible for the viewer to see. On the other hand, other perennials shine here.

In some earlier posts I've raved on about Hakonachloa 'All Gold'. Well, it's still got me raving, especially when you are in this part of the garden.

The first combination that caught my eye was this nice contrast between the Alchemilla mollis (Ladies mantle) and Sedum 'Purple Emperor'. This is the only Sedum I've never made more of, it never really thrilled me and has taken a few years to clump up. Now though I think I'm going to cut off two or three stems.

Here you can see why I'm so crazy about 'All Gold'. It is just such a fantastic combination plant. This photo shows it with Nepeta mussinii and a self sown Astrantia seedling on the left.

Just a foot away is the most beautiful blue Columbine but I almost missed it as you can see that a Salvia verticilata seedling has almost engulfed it.

Geranium cantabrigiense 'Cambridge' is just stunning as it spills over the wall. Last year somebody dug a big hole in this area and I was so afraid this lovely plant would suffer but it's come back like crazy.

Ah ha! Here you can see that this 'All gold' needs some better companions. Daylily foliage and a rock? Nope, I've got to do something here.

Ahhh, much better. How do you like this pairing of 'All Gold' with Geranium sanguinium? I love it!

Another hardy geranium. This one is Geranium 'Claridge Druce'. Ok, now who was walking through here and crunched all this foliage?

"Woof - not me! What makes you think I was in the garden?"

Calie got her summer cut this week, my family is so mad at me for doing this but her coat was so long and she would get matted every time she ran under the sprinkler. Oh well, it will grow back again.

It lives!

Last year I bought three Corydalis 'Blackberry Wine'. At least, that's the cultivar name I remember.

It's not the first time I bought different colored Corydalis. For the first time though, one made it through the year and returned. I wonder why they different colors are so finicky to grow when the yellow variety seeds itself into every nook and cranny.

Do you have luck with Corydalis?

Today's post might be a record shorty. It's way too beautiful outside and my calendar for the day is chock full.

See ya!

The Long View

In the gardening world, we tend to look at things close up. In fact, the closer the better, oh how I wish I could use my old nikkor macro lens right now.

Over the winter I remember looking for landscape shots of my garden and found very few. This morning as I walked around with wet feet (lots of dew on the lawn), I decided to take a look at the long view and shoot the whole garden, not individual blooms.

We'll start with the entrance to our property, shot from across the street. You can see how far back we are set from the road. This might be quite common in your part of the world but not very common here on Long Island.

Taken from the opposite point of view, I hung my head out of my second floor bedroom window for this photo. Now you are looking up towards the street where I was standing for the first shot.

Our bedroom goes from the front of the house to the back so naturally I took a photo while hanging out the back window too. Showcased here is our enormous, incredibly awkward swimming pool which is not yet open for the season.

Lesson number one for the "do it yourself landscaper". Do not put your pool smack dab in the middle of your yard unless you live in a tropical zone and like to look at swimming pools. Where we live the pool is closed for at least 8 months of the year and it's an ugly sight for way too long a time period.

Standing on the back of the pool patio, this is the furthest section of our yard. In my estimate, this area alone is about 1/3 of an acre. You can see how nicely the shrub material is filling in to hide my neighbors less than lovely white plastic fence.

Looking from side to side there is a small bed on the side of the pool where the previous "do it yourself" owner did a poor job of grading the soil. This is what we did to make the best of a bad situation.

Standing at the back (well, maybe 20 feet from the back as I didn't step into the shade beds) this is looking forward to the house. I love standing here and looking through the breezeway. When a car drives down the road it gives an amazing feeling to realize how much land we are blessed with.

You will see these photos again soon. One reason that I prefer photos taken on cloudy days is that you don't have the stark detail of sunlight and shadow. A good photographer can use those conditions to their advantage but in the case of my landscape shots, I would have preferred not to have their distraction. You'll just have to wait though until we have the right conditions and then I'll show you what I mean.

Now it's your turn. Take some long view shots for us and list your site here in the comment section. I'd love to step back and see your whole property too.

New Water Feature

Well, it was bound to happen. I've been complaining about this huge front lawn and how much I want to have a water feature here. Yesterday while I was out running errands, my husband Don had a construction crew begin work on our new water feature.

By mid afternoon we were hit with torrential thunder storms and downpours. Here's the end result...

What do you think? I might have to change the name of my garden now, it sure doesn't look like Old Country Gardens to me.


Oops, nope, wait a bit. Wrong photo, here we are back in reality. Yup, I guess Old Country Gardens will just have to stay the way it is for now. As for water features, this is it, our golf course sprinkler system.

The other photo was taken at Oheka Castle where my daughter is now working. Nice place to be, don't you think?