Showing posts with label Gardening. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gardening. Show all posts

Friday, June 4, 2021

Allium and Iris --the stars of my late May and early June garden

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Late May and early June is allium and iris time. Bearded iris have always been at the top of my list. The fragrance is intoxicating and compensates for their heart-breakingly brief season of bloom and unfortunate vulnerability to Botrytis Rhizome rot. This year I finally gave my Iris what they crave—full sun and good air circulation thanks to well-spaced planting. One of my great sins as a gardener is a tendency to cram too many plants into my garden beds. I’m finally breaking that bad habit.

Last year allium rose to the top of my list of most loved plants. When I returned home from a week in hell at Chestnut Hill hospital for major surgery, my garden never looked so beautiful. I was so happy to be home in my garden with Rick. It was allium time and I think I’ll always associate allium with that magical day.
After the allium and bearded iris have wrought their magic, it’s time for the Siberians.

They are tough, require little coddling and are very effective in a mass planting. The only downside is they have no fragrance, but then you can't have everything in one plant.
Posted by karen at 10:01 AM 6 comments
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Monday, June 15, 2020

Garden Therapy

My wildly overgrown garden

My garden has always been a source of solace, but never more so than this year as I was recovering from major surgery. My week in the hospital was hell and my recovery much slower than I would like. But fortunately I have my wonderful husband and son and the garden.

When I returned home from the hospital the first thing I did was go into my back garden. It was awash in purple alliums and had never looked so beautiful.

Yes it looked wild and neglected, but the flowers were beautiful and the fragrance of Ms. Kim Korean Lilac was intoxicating.

I always felt that the succession of bloom passed too quickly and that I never had the time I needed to really appreciate each flower. I assumed that if I was retired I would be able to savor each moment. However, although I was doing nothing but sitting in the garden, I still felt like it was going much too quickly. The allium was followed by the rush of the Siberian iris, the peonies, the roses, the clematis, the foxglove. Siberian Iris

Violet Shimmer Clematis

David Austin Rose, "Graham Thomas"

Foxglove
Late May and early June is the truly magical time in the garden and I so wish I could replay those weeks.

It’s been hard to resist the urge to work in the garden and possibly jeopardize my recovery. Fortunately when my husband and son see me overdoing what started as some minor weed-pulling, they warn me that if I keep doing this I’ll wind up back in the hospital. That thought is enough to make me sit down.

Posted by karen at 10:00 AM 9 comments
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Wednesday, April 29, 2020

There are advantages to a cold spring!

Crabapple and lilac blooming together


There are advantages to this cold spring. Flowering shrubs which usually do not survive temperatures in mid to high 60s are still flowering in our current 50s to low 60s range. In past springs, my fragile crabapple bloomed in mid April and was soon zapped by a day in the mid to late 60s. For the first time in my memory, my crabapple and my lilac are blooming at the same time.

Also my redbud and carlesi viburnum are joining my crabapple, dogwoods, lilac and crabapple for a spectacular display—compensation for a cool spring.
Incredibly fragrant carlesi viburnum


My redbud blossoms are lasting longer than usual


My tulips have had a long run.

Working in the garden in temperatures in late 50s and low 60s is less fun than in high 60s and low 70s, but there are advantages to a cool spring.
Posted by karen at 10:42 PM 4 comments
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Wednesday, February 28, 2018

Soon there will be daffodils!



Winter gets harder and harder. Each year I am more and more impatient for spring. The snowdrops were late this year but now they are in abundance

Species crocus are everywhere:

And witch hazel is in bloom. It's on its way out but still wonderfully fragrant.


It never really feels like spring has arrived until the daffodils bloom; unfortunately it looks like I’m going to have to wait a week or so for the first daffodils to emerge.

Soon I will be out there working in my garden. Cicero said it all: "If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need."
Posted by karen at 6:37 PM 1 comments
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Monday, August 14, 2017

I can’t believe this was my first visit to Chanticleer!


Chanticleer in August

I can’t believe this was my first visit to Chanticleer. For years I have been planning to go, but somehow never got it together.

When my husband and I travel, I always make sure we make time for the great gardens of the places we visit. I can’t imagine a visit to London without going to Kew Gardens or to Berlin without the Botanical Gardens. But somehow I didn’t get it together to visit this incredibly beautiful garden right here in my own backyard.

This is not a garden where I get ideas to introduce into my own garden. Chanticleer takes advantage of abundant sun and space, which I do not have. My wild garden is so crammed with plants that it would be a challenge to find room for something new and I sure don’t have the energy or inclination to rip up what I have.

What I love about Chanticleer is the tranquility. The number of visitors is limited by the size of the parking lot and the website states:” Our parking lot holds 120 cars and can fill on weekends and Friday evenings. Please car pool and understand once we reach capacity, we will ask you to return another time.” There are no hordes of visitors disrupting the serenity at Chanticleer. I plan to become a member and visit as often as I can!
Posted by karen at 11:16 AM 0 comments
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Wednesday, May 3, 2017

Gardening for Fragrance



What I love most about spring and early summer flowers is the fragrance. My favorites are carlesi viburnum and the common lilac, syringa vulgaris. The flowers last for a short time but it’s worth putting up with these not particularly attractive shrubs for those few days of glorious fragrance.

Then my garden is suffused with the musky fragrance of cherry laurel and tree peonies —again for only a few precious days.


The tree peonies have the shortest bloom period of all sometimes only 2-3 days.



Then the incredibly sweet fragrance of lily of the valley.


Right now I’m overwhelmed by the powerful scent of Korean lilac. It’s very different from the common lilac—musky rather than sweet, but it’s much more powerful.. While it’s still possible to buy fragrant flowering shrubs, if you love fragrant flowers, you just have to grow your own. Breeders are aiming for showy flowers and fragrance has been sacrificed. I went to a garden center last week intending to buy stock. The flowers were gorgeous, but the scent was barely perceptible. Looks like I’m going to have to grow my own stock from seed!
Posted by karen at 9:20 PM 19 comments
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Wednesday, April 19, 2017

The great spring awakening!




I thought maybe it was my imagination, but the great spring awakening was coming thicker and faster than usual. Then I read the Inquirer article What’s behind the leaf explosion? Why the region suddenly has turned green? I wasn’t imagining this. From the Inquirer
In just the last few days, leaves have been popping and a green haze has washed over the woodlands across the region.
“It seemed like everything jumped forward,” said Peter Zale, curator at Longwood Gardens, in Kennett Square.
“It really does seem to be concentrated,” he said, adding that some longtime local gardeners have told him “they’ve never seen anything like this.”
The explosive behavior of the region’s arboreal life is directly related to one of the stranger four months in the region’s weather history.

And it’s not just the leaves; my spring bulbs and flowering trees and shrubs seem to have emerged all at once:




I love the way my hyacinths pop up right through the pachysandra!
Posted by karen at 4:57 AM 2 comments
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Sunday, March 26, 2017

A garden full of blasted buds—the price paid for our summery February

One of the few survivors, Pieris Japonica

My garden is filled with blasted buds and it looks like I will not have the wonderful Spring display of quince and forsythia. The only early flowering shrub that survived the recent wintry blast is my Pieris Japonica—not too surprising since it is hardy to zone 4. close-up of Pieris

Just maybe a few late forming forsythia and quince buds have survived and will eventually bloom.

Hellebores are as reliable as Pieris--they always survive a frost:
hellebores as cut flowers

hellebores in the garden

The flowers of early spring bulbs usually survive but the stems are flattened:

daffodils battered by the snow

scilla siberica flattened by the snow.

It's practically April and it never snows in April, right???
Posted by karen at 6:01 PM 2 comments
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Sunday, March 5, 2017

Crocus, Daffodils, and Hellebores are popping up all over!


Usually by this time of year I am sick of ice and snow and desperate for Spring. This year not so much. Yes, I am eagerly awaiting the start of the gardening season, but given the mild winter I am not as desperately eager as usual. The first crocus appeared in mid February, and the first daffodil on Feb.28.


Hellebores are popping up all over:




My forced hyacinth are blooming:
!


And my early blooming rhododendron, Cornell Pink is starting!

Good times are ahead!
Posted by karen at 6:21 PM 3 comments
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Friday, February 17, 2017

The show has begin!





This is the time of the year when we gardeners get really impatient for Spring. Whenever the temperature is over 40 degrees I wander around my garden searching for signs of life. I am so grateful for snowdrops! They usually emerge in January and I have had snowdrops for about a month now.

The witch hazel emerged a few weeks ago.


And the winter jasmine has been out for few weeks, now blasted by a recent cold spell.



Crocus foliage and even a few early daffodil shoots are beginning to emerge and my begonia tubers stored in my unheated attic are beginning to sprout!
Posted by karen at 12:24 PM 0 comments
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Thursday, August 18, 2016

The stars of my mid-August garden

Dahlia

August is a difficult month for gardeners—so much death and disease in the garden and sometimes I’m tempted to just give up. My garden is mainly spring and early summer shrubs and perennials. August is the time sun-loving annuals come into their own, but I don’t have too many of those—-mainly because I don’t have much full sun.

The full sun I do have is largely devoted to summer blooming bulbs like Dahlias which keep going until frost. True it’s necessary to dig them up and they are not the easiest bulbs to winter over but they are worth all the trouble.One of my favorite summer bulbs is Acidanthera AKA Abyssinian Gladiolus summer which is easy to grow and generally disease free:

The there are dazzling white species lilies--the last of the lilies:

Although my garden is at its best in Spring and early Summer, I do have some perennials which reliably bloom in August, such as the rudbeckia(variety unknown) which was here when we moved here decades ago; it has probably been flourishing in this garden for 50-60 years.


There’s also Rudbeckia Herbstone, the tallest of all, which is slowly taking over the garden.


I used to have a whole lot of pink and white phlox which blended beautifully with the gold of the rudbeckia, but a vicious groundhog has destroyed my phlox for 3 years in a row. It’s time to cut my losses and dig up the phlox.
Posted by karen at 7:45 AM 2 comments
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Saturday, July 23, 2016

The moment I’ve been waiting for: Casa Blanca is in bloom!

I love lilies and what I love most of all are the mid-July oriental lilies with their musky fragrance I just can’t get enough of. The first to bloom is the deep pink, very reliable Stargazer:


Next the impossibly tall, glistening white Casa Blanca:

My idea of bliss is sitting in our garden late at night sipping a glass of wine and taking in the intoxicating fragrance of Casa Blanca

I’m sure that Casa Blanca is the lily DH Lawrence had in mind when in Sons and Lovers he described a pregnant Mrs. Morel pushed out of her house after an ugly fight with her husband:

She became aware of something about her. With an effort she roused herself to see what it was that penetrated her consciousness. The tall white lilies were reeling in the moonlight. and the air was charged with their perfume, as with a presence. Mrs. Morel gasped slightly in fear. She touched the big, pallid flowers on their petals, then shivered. They seemed to be stretching in the moonlight. She put her hand into one white bin: the gold scarcely showed on her fingers by moonlight. She bent down to look at the binful of yellow pollen; but it only appeared dusky. Then she drank a deep draught of the scent. It almost made her dizzy.

Mrs. Morel leaned on the garden gate, looking out, and she lost herself awhile. She did not know what she thought. Except for a slight feeling of sickness, and her consciousness in the child, herself melted out like scent into the shiny, pale air. After a time the child, too, melted with her in the mixing- pot of moonlight, and she rested with the hills and lilies and houses, all swum together in a kind of swoon.

When I first read Lawrence I wasn't a gardener and didn't pay much attention to the way Lawrence often used his characters’ reactions to flowers and trees as a way of probing their emotional states. But when I re-read Sons and Lovers years later, after I became hooked on gardening, I appreciated this dimension of Lawrence. And I was convinced that the lily described in this passage this was Casa Blanca—or more likely an earlier less hybridized version.


Posted by karen at 5:38 PM 3 comments
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