Monday Morning Garden Report: 20 December 2018 (Thursday)
Because of a weekend in Chicago, this Monday Morning Report recalls several moments during a Thursday morning walk around the garden. Probably the distinction in dates is not especially important; however, Monday was a day of bright sunshine and Thursday was a gray, overcast day with occasional hints of precipitation. The atmospherics certainly influence what I see–and how I respond to what catches my attention. Here are twelve observations, most of them composed when standing in the gazebo, doing nothing but looking, listening, feeling, regretting, reflecting.
• Three Dianthus. This morning before coming to Coe, I dug up three dianthus I had planted in a Buffalo UMC flower garden. The dianthus look healthy, but they were in an exposed planter, and I was fearful they might not survive temperatures dropping to zero or lower. So I dug up three of the five plants and brought them to Coe, planting two in the “C” and “L” beds (to partner with the marvelous Firewitch dianthus planted four years ago) and one to reside in a pot in the greenhouse. I don’t recall I’ve ever dug up and moved flowers this late in December.
• Unkempt Beds. Although I have tried to keep up on the removal of dead vegetation, the garden still has many unkempt areas. The “G” bed at the east end remains disheveled and forgotten–with the exception of the berm, where earlier this fall I cleared out most of the old vegetation before planting 100 daffodils and 100 species tulips.
• Unraked Leaves. Fallen leaves are an unresolved task throughout the garden. The problem is that most of the garden’s “native” leaves come from the scab-riddled flowering crab. Although the apple trees managed to retain most of their foliage through the summer, the leaves still carry the fungal blight, and I don’t want to add those diseased leaves to the compost piles. On the other hand, the garden has a large supply of oak, maple, redbud, and hawthorn leaves that have blown in from beyond the garden walls, and they are all good candidates for the compost bins. So far this fall, I’ve only done minimal raking–mostly in the northwest corner of the garden. I lack a clear plan for how I want to proceed.
• Thatch/Soil Clumps. The gravel walkways around the SE lawn section need cleaning. In preparation for sowing the dormant grass seed three weeks ago, I vigorously raked the top surface of that area, removing most of the dead grass and thatch, plus some clinging soil. In my haste to get the area ready, I raked the thatch/soil clumps onto the gravel walkway. Now the problem is picking up those clumps without also scooping up the underlying gravel. Some of the clumps are frozen solid and are easily separated from the small, white rocks, but in many areas the soil has penetrated into the gravel, making the separation process slow and imperfect. Fortunately, when I did the NE lawn section the following week, I had learned from my mistake and did a better job of keeping the soil/thatch clumps off the gravel walkways. Most of those clumps are now spread across the SE corner hosta bed.
• Wind Chimes. As I’m standing in the gazebo, surveying the garden, I hear the hum of the wind chimes hanging from the limb of a flowering crab in the “G” bed. On several occasions when we have had a strong wind, the chimes have produced more of a clanging sound than I had expected, but in this morning’s gentle breeze, the pentatonic scale is a welcome, self-effacing accompaniment to the visual.
• Gazebo. The gazebo needs cleaning. While re-seeding the garden quad lawn this fall, I’ve used the gazebo for storing seeds, garden tools, straw matting, rolls of landscape fabric, several cardboard boxes–and the swirling wind has deposited scores of leaves in every corner. It won’t take long to clean up; I just need to do it.
• Forsythia. While looking across the garden at the “G” bed, I’m surprised how appealing is the large forsythia this morning. Normally I think of the forsythia as providing one or two weeks of glorious yellow blooms early in the spring, and the remainder of the year it becomes a rather awkward, ungainly blob of limbs and leaves, hiding in a remote corner of the garden. But this morning, its small reddish-brown leaves–nicely distributed among its limbs–offer a large, modestly attractive medallion of autumn foliage within the surrounding mass of the dark green yews.
• The Yews. My yew pruning would certainly not win any awards, but the yews that circle most of the garden’s central quad are in the best shape they have been in the last five years. Of course, one doesn’t know what the dry winter winds will bring, but we have good soil moisture and they appear to be well-prepared for any impending January and February assault. I’m particularly pleased how the yews behind the “D” bed have developed, though it will be several years before they gain the stature and fullness of the other yews. I do wonder what is their history and why they were so much smaller.
• Siberian Iris. I love the orange, sword-like leaves of the Siberian Iris in the winter, but with just a couple of exceptions, all of this year’s foliage is flattened to the ground. I’ve removed about half of the leaves, but they don’t like to be cut. Their trimming is always a slow process.
• Clematis and Honeysuckle. Although this was a good summer for several clematis, I need to create a different support system for the two clematis at the front of the pergola. The only supports they currently have are bamboo poles–which have proven inadequate for the lax clematis vines. I recently saw a design in an old issue of English Garden magazine that uses a wire mesh for a clematis. A worthy winter project would be constructing two of these structures, making it easier for the clematis to become entangled and supported. I also need to rethink how and when I should be pruning these clematis. I have a similar issue with the honeysuckle planted under the wooden Eiffel Tower in the “H” bed. The honeysuckle has been far more interested in sending runners across the ground than in dispatching vines up the tower. If I can get a couple of sturdy vine limbs permanently entwined over the peak of the tower, I suspect the honeysuckle will be more cooperative.
• Black Cat. Earlier this morning I discovered the new sleeping couch for the garden’s feral black cat. Last year, he/she/it liked to nap in a compost bin or on a bed of sedge grass next to the rain garden. Today was the first time I found “him” curled up on a pile of landscape fabric dumped behind the yews at the back of the “K” bed. Once I started to approach him, he ran away, about 15 feet, and then stopped to look back at me. Because of his likely appetite for small birds, I would prefer that he find another home, but perhaps he helps keep the garden free of small rodents. Regardless of how I assess his potential benefits or defects, so far I’ve made no attempt to have him removed. I am reminded of when my mother was driving home one night and a black cat ran across the road, in front of our black Model A Ford. She hit the brakes, put the car in reverse, and backed up to a previous intersection so we could drive home another route. When I asked my mother why she backed up, she refused to talk about it. Perhaps it’s bad luck to talk about black cats.
• Late Autumn. While I wouldn’t declare the middle of December is my favorite time of year in the garden, the garden in its late autumn repose does have its notable attractions. On this gray December morning the garden is an appealing sanctuary, conveying a quiet firmness and stability in contrast to the city's incessant noise. Part of the attraction is the warmth of the gazebo and its welcome protection from the chilling mist. It’s hard for me to ignore all the failures, the unfinished projects, the vegetation that needs trimming, the leaves that need raking--but the basic structure within these walls feels solid, enduring, wholesome, life-sustaining. Sanctuaries are escapes, but they can be escapes into life, enhanced by the muted resonance of a five-tone wind chime.
Photo: the wind chimes in September.
Because of a weekend in Chicago, this Monday Morning Report recalls several moments during a Thursday morning walk around the garden. Probably the distinction in dates is not especially important; however, Monday was a day of bright sunshine and Thursday was a gray, overcast day with occasional hints of precipitation. The atmospherics certainly influence what I see–and how I respond to what catches my attention. Here are twelve observations, most of them composed when standing in the gazebo, doing nothing but looking, listening, feeling, regretting, reflecting.
• Three Dianthus. This morning before coming to Coe, I dug up three dianthus I had planted in a Buffalo UMC flower garden. The dianthus look healthy, but they were in an exposed planter, and I was fearful they might not survive temperatures dropping to zero or lower. So I dug up three of the five plants and brought them to Coe, planting two in the “C” and “L” beds (to partner with the marvelous Firewitch dianthus planted four years ago) and one to reside in a pot in the greenhouse. I don’t recall I’ve ever dug up and moved flowers this late in December.
• Unkempt Beds. Although I have tried to keep up on the removal of dead vegetation, the garden still has many unkempt areas. The “G” bed at the east end remains disheveled and forgotten–with the exception of the berm, where earlier this fall I cleared out most of the old vegetation before planting 100 daffodils and 100 species tulips.
• Unraked Leaves. Fallen leaves are an unresolved task throughout the garden. The problem is that most of the garden’s “native” leaves come from the scab-riddled flowering crab. Although the apple trees managed to retain most of their foliage through the summer, the leaves still carry the fungal blight, and I don’t want to add those diseased leaves to the compost piles. On the other hand, the garden has a large supply of oak, maple, redbud, and hawthorn leaves that have blown in from beyond the garden walls, and they are all good candidates for the compost bins. So far this fall, I’ve only done minimal raking–mostly in the northwest corner of the garden. I lack a clear plan for how I want to proceed.
• Thatch/Soil Clumps. The gravel walkways around the SE lawn section need cleaning. In preparation for sowing the dormant grass seed three weeks ago, I vigorously raked the top surface of that area, removing most of the dead grass and thatch, plus some clinging soil. In my haste to get the area ready, I raked the thatch/soil clumps onto the gravel walkway. Now the problem is picking up those clumps without also scooping up the underlying gravel. Some of the clumps are frozen solid and are easily separated from the small, white rocks, but in many areas the soil has penetrated into the gravel, making the separation process slow and imperfect. Fortunately, when I did the NE lawn section the following week, I had learned from my mistake and did a better job of keeping the soil/thatch clumps off the gravel walkways. Most of those clumps are now spread across the SE corner hosta bed.
• Wind Chimes. As I’m standing in the gazebo, surveying the garden, I hear the hum of the wind chimes hanging from the limb of a flowering crab in the “G” bed. On several occasions when we have had a strong wind, the chimes have produced more of a clanging sound than I had expected, but in this morning’s gentle breeze, the pentatonic scale is a welcome, self-effacing accompaniment to the visual.
• Gazebo. The gazebo needs cleaning. While re-seeding the garden quad lawn this fall, I’ve used the gazebo for storing seeds, garden tools, straw matting, rolls of landscape fabric, several cardboard boxes–and the swirling wind has deposited scores of leaves in every corner. It won’t take long to clean up; I just need to do it.
• Forsythia. While looking across the garden at the “G” bed, I’m surprised how appealing is the large forsythia this morning. Normally I think of the forsythia as providing one or two weeks of glorious yellow blooms early in the spring, and the remainder of the year it becomes a rather awkward, ungainly blob of limbs and leaves, hiding in a remote corner of the garden. But this morning, its small reddish-brown leaves–nicely distributed among its limbs–offer a large, modestly attractive medallion of autumn foliage within the surrounding mass of the dark green yews.
• The Yews. My yew pruning would certainly not win any awards, but the yews that circle most of the garden’s central quad are in the best shape they have been in the last five years. Of course, one doesn’t know what the dry winter winds will bring, but we have good soil moisture and they appear to be well-prepared for any impending January and February assault. I’m particularly pleased how the yews behind the “D” bed have developed, though it will be several years before they gain the stature and fullness of the other yews. I do wonder what is their history and why they were so much smaller.
• Siberian Iris. I love the orange, sword-like leaves of the Siberian Iris in the winter, but with just a couple of exceptions, all of this year’s foliage is flattened to the ground. I’ve removed about half of the leaves, but they don’t like to be cut. Their trimming is always a slow process.
• Clematis and Honeysuckle. Although this was a good summer for several clematis, I need to create a different support system for the two clematis at the front of the pergola. The only supports they currently have are bamboo poles–which have proven inadequate for the lax clematis vines. I recently saw a design in an old issue of English Garden magazine that uses a wire mesh for a clematis. A worthy winter project would be constructing two of these structures, making it easier for the clematis to become entangled and supported. I also need to rethink how and when I should be pruning these clematis. I have a similar issue with the honeysuckle planted under the wooden Eiffel Tower in the “H” bed. The honeysuckle has been far more interested in sending runners across the ground than in dispatching vines up the tower. If I can get a couple of sturdy vine limbs permanently entwined over the peak of the tower, I suspect the honeysuckle will be more cooperative.
• Black Cat. Earlier this morning I discovered the new sleeping couch for the garden’s feral black cat. Last year, he/she/it liked to nap in a compost bin or on a bed of sedge grass next to the rain garden. Today was the first time I found “him” curled up on a pile of landscape fabric dumped behind the yews at the back of the “K” bed. Once I started to approach him, he ran away, about 15 feet, and then stopped to look back at me. Because of his likely appetite for small birds, I would prefer that he find another home, but perhaps he helps keep the garden free of small rodents. Regardless of how I assess his potential benefits or defects, so far I’ve made no attempt to have him removed. I am reminded of when my mother was driving home one night and a black cat ran across the road, in front of our black Model A Ford. She hit the brakes, put the car in reverse, and backed up to a previous intersection so we could drive home another route. When I asked my mother why she backed up, she refused to talk about it. Perhaps it’s bad luck to talk about black cats.
• Late Autumn. While I wouldn’t declare the middle of December is my favorite time of year in the garden, the garden in its late autumn repose does have its notable attractions. On this gray December morning the garden is an appealing sanctuary, conveying a quiet firmness and stability in contrast to the city's incessant noise. Part of the attraction is the warmth of the gazebo and its welcome protection from the chilling mist. It’s hard for me to ignore all the failures, the unfinished projects, the vegetation that needs trimming, the leaves that need raking--but the basic structure within these walls feels solid, enduring, wholesome, life-sustaining. Sanctuaries are escapes, but they can be escapes into life, enhanced by the muted resonance of a five-tone wind chime.
Photo: the wind chimes in September.
Monday Morning Garden Report: 3 December 2018
Light snow on the garden this morning, temperature in the low 30s, sky overcast. A few tasks accomplished before noon: emptied the trash in the greenhouse and the trash can by the NW gate; folded up weed control fabric that had been used to smother the old lawn this summer; began unpacking a new electric chipper/shredder that should speed up the composting process; straightened up the greenhouse, preparing for the first round later this week of sowing seeds for spring-time flowers; filled up the green yardy (mostly dead peony foliage and rose bush prunings–material that I don’t want in the compost pile) and set it outside the garden gate for the grounds crew to take away; fed the red wigglers in the worm bin some “fresh” leaf mulch and kitchen vegetable peelings. Listed below are other gardening tasks that we’ve been tackling since the last MMGR two weeks ago.
• One major accomplishment: cleaned all the dahlia and peacock orchid tubers and stored them in three containers of Canadian peat. Last year I gently watered the peat, but some of the dahlia “bulbs” rotted, so this year I started the storage with no added moisture. This was not a great year for dahlia blooms, but it appears that many of them focused their reproductive energies on generating new tubers.
• Moved into the greenhouse three rosemary bushes, one kniphofia, and one tarragon (which has begun sending out new shoots within days after I trimmed back all of this year’s growth). I also moved in the planter with the three nepitella (i.e., lesser calamint). A member of the mint family, the scientific name is now Clinopodium nepeta; older synonyms include Calamintha nepeta, Calamintha nepetoides, Melissa nepeta, Satureja nepeta, and Thymus nepeta. Leaves have a distinctive mint fragrance–often described as a combination of mint and oregano. If this trio were planted in the ground, they probably would be winter hardy, but since they are in this plastic planter, I decided to bring them into the greenhouse. The nepitella are already generating new growth, and so they may become the source of an appealing cooking herb later this winter.
• On the 15th I finished planting the Dasystemon tulips at the front of the berm in the “G” bed. The ground was frozen about 1" thick, but using my shovel I was able to break through that hard crust and could then employ the small bulb planter to get the bulbs 4-5" below the surface. Now have 100 species tulip bulbs in front of a Colorblend mix of 100 yellow daffodils. The heirloom tetraploid tulip is supposed to be a naturalizer.
• On the 16th, planted 15 Nigrum alliums in the “A2" bed, behind the row of daylilies and in front of the two cathedral plant supports; the remaining 10 allium bulbs are now housed in the SE corner of the “L” bed–where there had been rose bush–next to a small group of Siberian iris.
• One week-long project was positioning 44 tan Belgian edgers around the two metal spheres–affectionately known as Ringo and Sisyphus. I filled the area inside the new stone borders with four wheelbarrow loads of wood chips. I still need to devise a way of anchoring the spheres so they can’t roll over on an aspiring young Tarzan thinking they are a pair of jungle gyms, but at least the two spheres now have a permanent-looking home.
• All the weed-suppressant fabric has been removed from the two east lawn sections, and the 1,400 crocus bulbs have been planted. This coming week, we’ll sow the two lawn sections with our rye/blue grass mix, cover with the straw mating, and wait until spring to see if we get germination from anything other than dandelions and crabgrass.
• On Thanksgiving Day spent five hours at Coe planting bulbs. Swept off the snow on the old Field Station bed, removed most of the wild strawberries, mistakenly dug up several small pearly everlasting plants (which I tried to replant), and planted 30 Bakeri Lilac Wonder tulip bulbs in the front of the bed and behind them planted 30 larger Blushing Lady tulip bulbs. Planted another 20 Bakeri Lilac Wonders in the back corners of the rock garden. This required removing several clumps of the aggressive sedum and cutting back on two of the creeping phlox. Planted 100 Unifolium Allium bulbs along the front borders of the “C” and “L” beds and 25 Purple Sensation Allium bulbs in the middle of the “I” bed, a space that has been occupied by a hodge-podge of New England asters, black-eyed susan vines, and coneflowers. Finished the day planting 35 Spaerocephalon Alliums behind the NE park bench. Not sure how well the allium will do there because the area does not receive much direct sunshine. I had hoped the Verbena bonariensis would self-seed in that area, but that didn’t happen so we’ll try something different.
• On the 27th it was cold, about 12F when I arrived at Coe in the morning, but it was sunny, and my student garden assistant and I were able to finish planting the remaining bulbs. In the raised “A1" bed we planted about 65 Molly Jeannine aliums; the remaining 35 bulbs were spread in a semi-circle around an attractive purple love grass at the east end of the “K” bed. We planted 70 Wolfbane corms along the gravel walkway that the “C” bed shares with “B1.” Those little nutlike corms are very difficult to distinguish top from bottom, so many were inserted sideways, trusting the wolfsbane to figure out their top from their bottom. Finally, behind the NW bench, we planted 40 Sphaerocaphalon allium. Because that soil is covered with leaves and mulch, it was not yet frozen and still easy to work with.
• Although I have mixed feelings about exterior Christmas lights, I decided to string five strands of small LED lights around three bushes in the “H” bed. They are all located within 15 feet of our outlet on the pergola and are automatically turned on and off with the garden’s other walkway lights. In my biased but humble opinion, the strands of 500 lights add a friendly cheer to the garden after dusk and show up quick well now that I have pruned the rose bush and cut back all the New England asters.
• Finished editing the Fall ‘18 issue of The Garden Quarto. This edition includes another wonderful poem by Nick Mason-Browne, a short essay by Kendra Miner Markland (who was my superb garden assistant three years ago, her last year at Coe), and a powerful poem by Gabeba Baderoon, a South African poet and professor at Penn State.
Photo: Bulbs in the greenhouse, waiting to be planted.
Light snow on the garden this morning, temperature in the low 30s, sky overcast. A few tasks accomplished before noon: emptied the trash in the greenhouse and the trash can by the NW gate; folded up weed control fabric that had been used to smother the old lawn this summer; began unpacking a new electric chipper/shredder that should speed up the composting process; straightened up the greenhouse, preparing for the first round later this week of sowing seeds for spring-time flowers; filled up the green yardy (mostly dead peony foliage and rose bush prunings–material that I don’t want in the compost pile) and set it outside the garden gate for the grounds crew to take away; fed the red wigglers in the worm bin some “fresh” leaf mulch and kitchen vegetable peelings. Listed below are other gardening tasks that we’ve been tackling since the last MMGR two weeks ago.
• One major accomplishment: cleaned all the dahlia and peacock orchid tubers and stored them in three containers of Canadian peat. Last year I gently watered the peat, but some of the dahlia “bulbs” rotted, so this year I started the storage with no added moisture. This was not a great year for dahlia blooms, but it appears that many of them focused their reproductive energies on generating new tubers.
• Moved into the greenhouse three rosemary bushes, one kniphofia, and one tarragon (which has begun sending out new shoots within days after I trimmed back all of this year’s growth). I also moved in the planter with the three nepitella (i.e., lesser calamint). A member of the mint family, the scientific name is now Clinopodium nepeta; older synonyms include Calamintha nepeta, Calamintha nepetoides, Melissa nepeta, Satureja nepeta, and Thymus nepeta. Leaves have a distinctive mint fragrance–often described as a combination of mint and oregano. If this trio were planted in the ground, they probably would be winter hardy, but since they are in this plastic planter, I decided to bring them into the greenhouse. The nepitella are already generating new growth, and so they may become the source of an appealing cooking herb later this winter.
• On the 15th I finished planting the Dasystemon tulips at the front of the berm in the “G” bed. The ground was frozen about 1" thick, but using my shovel I was able to break through that hard crust and could then employ the small bulb planter to get the bulbs 4-5" below the surface. Now have 100 species tulip bulbs in front of a Colorblend mix of 100 yellow daffodils. The heirloom tetraploid tulip is supposed to be a naturalizer.
• On the 16th, planted 15 Nigrum alliums in the “A2" bed, behind the row of daylilies and in front of the two cathedral plant supports; the remaining 10 allium bulbs are now housed in the SE corner of the “L” bed–where there had been rose bush–next to a small group of Siberian iris.
• One week-long project was positioning 44 tan Belgian edgers around the two metal spheres–affectionately known as Ringo and Sisyphus. I filled the area inside the new stone borders with four wheelbarrow loads of wood chips. I still need to devise a way of anchoring the spheres so they can’t roll over on an aspiring young Tarzan thinking they are a pair of jungle gyms, but at least the two spheres now have a permanent-looking home.
• All the weed-suppressant fabric has been removed from the two east lawn sections, and the 1,400 crocus bulbs have been planted. This coming week, we’ll sow the two lawn sections with our rye/blue grass mix, cover with the straw mating, and wait until spring to see if we get germination from anything other than dandelions and crabgrass.
• On Thanksgiving Day spent five hours at Coe planting bulbs. Swept off the snow on the old Field Station bed, removed most of the wild strawberries, mistakenly dug up several small pearly everlasting plants (which I tried to replant), and planted 30 Bakeri Lilac Wonder tulip bulbs in the front of the bed and behind them planted 30 larger Blushing Lady tulip bulbs. Planted another 20 Bakeri Lilac Wonders in the back corners of the rock garden. This required removing several clumps of the aggressive sedum and cutting back on two of the creeping phlox. Planted 100 Unifolium Allium bulbs along the front borders of the “C” and “L” beds and 25 Purple Sensation Allium bulbs in the middle of the “I” bed, a space that has been occupied by a hodge-podge of New England asters, black-eyed susan vines, and coneflowers. Finished the day planting 35 Spaerocephalon Alliums behind the NE park bench. Not sure how well the allium will do there because the area does not receive much direct sunshine. I had hoped the Verbena bonariensis would self-seed in that area, but that didn’t happen so we’ll try something different.
• On the 27th it was cold, about 12F when I arrived at Coe in the morning, but it was sunny, and my student garden assistant and I were able to finish planting the remaining bulbs. In the raised “A1" bed we planted about 65 Molly Jeannine aliums; the remaining 35 bulbs were spread in a semi-circle around an attractive purple love grass at the east end of the “K” bed. We planted 70 Wolfbane corms along the gravel walkway that the “C” bed shares with “B1.” Those little nutlike corms are very difficult to distinguish top from bottom, so many were inserted sideways, trusting the wolfsbane to figure out their top from their bottom. Finally, behind the NW bench, we planted 40 Sphaerocaphalon allium. Because that soil is covered with leaves and mulch, it was not yet frozen and still easy to work with.
• Although I have mixed feelings about exterior Christmas lights, I decided to string five strands of small LED lights around three bushes in the “H” bed. They are all located within 15 feet of our outlet on the pergola and are automatically turned on and off with the garden’s other walkway lights. In my biased but humble opinion, the strands of 500 lights add a friendly cheer to the garden after dusk and show up quick well now that I have pruned the rose bush and cut back all the New England asters.
• Finished editing the Fall ‘18 issue of The Garden Quarto. This edition includes another wonderful poem by Nick Mason-Browne, a short essay by Kendra Miner Markland (who was my superb garden assistant three years ago, her last year at Coe), and a powerful poem by Gabeba Baderoon, a South African poet and professor at Penn State.
Photo: Bulbs in the greenhouse, waiting to be planted.
Monday Morning Garden Report: 12 November 2018
Since it’s been a month since I submitted a weekly garden report, I thought for this posting I would provide a retrospective summary of what we have been doing in the garden the last three weeks.
• 5 Red Crown Imperial Fritillaria. These fritillaria were planted in front of the yews at the eastern end of the “I” bed. This is my first experience with fritillaria, and I have the impression they can be tricky to grow. One issue is that the bulbs, if facing up, can collect rain water and rot. I dug out a trench about 2' long by 12" wide and went down about 8"–which meant I had to cut through several thick roots from the nearby flowering crab and/or the yews. Finding the soil compacted and not organically rich, I mixed in some peat and compost with the resident soil to improve drainage. I planted the large white bulbs on their sides, hoping to minimize the collection of water in their center cavities, covered them up with the new soil mixture, and stuck three yellow markers in the ground to identify their location. They are supposed to be a good back-of-border flower, reaching a sturdy 4' tall. After blooming, they should disappear for the summer, which means I need to decide what to plant in front of them to hide what will become a bare area. Of course, this assumes they actually do appear next spring.
• 1,400 crocus. Planting the Fritillaria only took one hour. Planting the 1,400 crocus bulbs in the two eastern lawn sections has taken over two weeks–and we’re still not done. The goal is to create the impression of a naturalized field of crocus. All the bulbs are Crocus tommasinianus (nicknamedTommies), a late-winter-to-early-spring blooming species with pale lilac and reddish-purple blooms and, in the words of Hortus Third, a “tunic finely reticulate.” Natives of the mountains in southeast Europe (Bulgaria, Hungary, Albania), they should have no problems with our Z4/5 winters. The planting went smoothly until we had several days of rain. It then become very difficult to get the wet, gummy soil out of the planter. But by last Thursday, we only had about 100 crocus left to plant.
• Ringo and Sisyphus. Since we are involved in this crocus project and will soon do a dormant winter re-seeding of the grass in these two eastern lawn segments, I decided we should determine a permanent location for the two iron spheres, affectionately known as Ringo and Sisyphus. Although there have been conversations about creating cement foundations for the spheres, I’ve decided to provide them with a wood chips base, which might help set them off from the surrounding lawn. While I had no problem positioning Ringo, Sisyphus proved uncooperative. No matter how I rotated the sphere, it never looked quite right–though I finally settled on a positioning that would provide maximum stability.
• Dahlias and Gladiolas. All of the dahlia and peacock orchid tubers were dug up, cleaned, trimmed, and stored in three bins of peat moss. This was not a great year for dahlia blooms (the blooms came late and were never prolific), but digging them up reveals that many of the plants focused their energy into the production of new tubers. The peacock orchids (members of the Gladiola family), which generated three months of blooms over the summer, also produced hundreds of new tubers. Assuming they store well, we should have plenty of corms to give away in the spring. This fall I did not add any moisture to the peat. Last year the peat became too damp, and we lost some of the dahlia tubers.
• 275 Tulip Bulbs. Once the dahlia beds were cleared, I planted 100 Flair and 25 Tubergen’s Gem tulips in the “J” bed and 75 Blushing Beauty and 25 Tubergen’s Gem tulips in the smaller “E” bed. The Blushing Beauty tulips are described on the Van Engelen website as an elegant, late-bloom variety that display “aureolin-yellow, blushing rosy-red toward [the] petals' edges with interior, pink-rimmed, canary-yellow bases.” The Flairs on the opposite side of the garden are supposed to be an early-to-mid-season tulip with red and yellow blooms. The Gems (Tulipa clusiana) are a shorter, mid-season species tulip with yellow and red blooms. Known to be very hardy (approved for Zone 2 winters), I’m hoping they will prove to be dependable naturalizers. These two beds were planted with tulips last year, and we probably still have a few viable bulbs, so this fall I planted the new bulbs in a random arrangement, hoping that any survivors from last year’s planting would look like they were simply part of an intentionally informal planting scheme.
• 100 Daffodils and 100 Tulips. Earlier this fall I decided to do a complete replanting of the berm above the rain garden and the south drainage channel in the “G” bed. Three years ago I had planted some ajuga and a wonderful group of persicaria in the area, but this year the persicaria failed to emerge and the ajuga were completely overrun by the gooseneck, asters, and goldenrod. In October I spent an afternoon thoroughly turning over every inch of soil, trying to remove every root I could find. I’m sure I’ve missing some obstinate gooseneck roots, but now other flowers should have a fighting chance. Last week I planted a Colorblend mix of 100 daffodils in the berm and 100 species tulips (Tulipa dasystemon) along the border in front of the daffodils.
• 25 Trout Lilies. I planted the trout lilies in groups of 4-5 bulbs along the gravel walkway on both sides of the pergola. They are an odd shape, imperfect cylinders with roots at one end and an emerging shoot at the other. I planted them so they were resting at about a 60 degree angle, 3-4 inches from each other, covered with 3-4 inches of soil, plus some mulch.
• 10 Iris Reticulata Eye Catcher bulbs. They are small iris, should only reach 5-7 inches in height, with white, deep blue, or yellow blooms in early spring. To find a space for them in the crevice garden, I had to remove large clumps of the small sedum I brought from home. The sedum loves the crevice garden, but it is an exuberant spreader and it would gladly take over the entire bed if it had its way. My research indicated the iris needs good draining and needs to be at least 3 inches deep. The crevice garden has excellent drainage, but in several instances, I had difficulty creating enough depth because I kept running into the slabs of limestone that create the rock crevices found throughout this bed.
• 5 Gladiator Alliums. The large bulbs are supposed to produce large lilac-pink blooms in late spring. So far all the allium I’ve planted in the garden have done well, and I have high expectations for these new additions. I planted them next to the grape hyacinths in a corner of the “C” bed where I had just cleared away an immigrant colony of Canada goldenrod. I planted them about 5" from each other and tried to get their roots about 6 inches underground.
• 100 Wolf’s Bane. These were planted at the front of the B1 and B2 beds. These corms are tricky to plant because it’s hard to distinguish their tops from their bottoms. I planted them in 3" holes, occasionally two to a hole, often planting them sideways and letting them decide what direction they wanted to grow. I still have another 100 wolf’s bane intended for the “C” and “L” borders.
• 100 Turkestanica Tulips. These are a species tulip that I hope will become a naturalizer. I planted most of them along the front of the “D” border, and one clump on the opposite side of the garden around the light post at the west end of the “K” bed. I think their white blooms with yellow or orange centers will make a marvelous visual addition to the garden, assuming they look even half as good as they appear in the Van Engelen photos. On the other hand, they are reputed to have a rather unpleasant odor, and so we’ll find out what 100 of them will smell like in an enclosed garden.
• 100 Red Tulips. Planted about 60 of these tulips under the espalier crab tree in the M2 bed. We’ve had red tulips there for two springs, but only a few emerged this past spring, and in planting the bulbs this November, I did not encounter any survivors. I planted the remaining red tulips at the back of the two raised “J” beds.
• 5 Schubertii Allium. These large bulbs were planted in the back of the “I” bed, amongst a colony of Solomon’s Seal. I had hoped to move these shade-loving perennials to the east end of the bed earlier this fall, a job that was never accomplished, so now they have these 5 allium mixed in with them. Perhaps next spring the Solomon's Seals will get moved.
• One unexpected event in early November. When I arrived at the garden one morning, I discovered a black handbag next to a park bench. All the compartments were unzipped and the only items left in the bag were a cellphone and a charger. My assumption is that the handbag was stolen, money and other valuables were removed, and the bag was dumped over the garden wall. When I took the bag to the Security Office in Gage Union, no one was there so I left the bag with a student at the Information Desk, providing her with a quick summary of how I discovered the bag and my suspicions about its history. I am not optimistic that the bag and owner will ever be reunited.
• My red wigglers in the earthworm bin are becoming much faster in processing the food scraps I provide them. I don’t know their numbers, but the mature red wigglers have evidently been producing hungry babies. In addition to shredded newspapers and uncooked kitchen leftovers (e.g., potatoes, onions, apples, winter squash, bananas, tea leaves), I started giving them some finely chopped up maple and oak leaves. I’ve got plenty.
Since it’s been a month since I submitted a weekly garden report, I thought for this posting I would provide a retrospective summary of what we have been doing in the garden the last three weeks.
• 5 Red Crown Imperial Fritillaria. These fritillaria were planted in front of the yews at the eastern end of the “I” bed. This is my first experience with fritillaria, and I have the impression they can be tricky to grow. One issue is that the bulbs, if facing up, can collect rain water and rot. I dug out a trench about 2' long by 12" wide and went down about 8"–which meant I had to cut through several thick roots from the nearby flowering crab and/or the yews. Finding the soil compacted and not organically rich, I mixed in some peat and compost with the resident soil to improve drainage. I planted the large white bulbs on their sides, hoping to minimize the collection of water in their center cavities, covered them up with the new soil mixture, and stuck three yellow markers in the ground to identify their location. They are supposed to be a good back-of-border flower, reaching a sturdy 4' tall. After blooming, they should disappear for the summer, which means I need to decide what to plant in front of them to hide what will become a bare area. Of course, this assumes they actually do appear next spring.
• 1,400 crocus. Planting the Fritillaria only took one hour. Planting the 1,400 crocus bulbs in the two eastern lawn sections has taken over two weeks–and we’re still not done. The goal is to create the impression of a naturalized field of crocus. All the bulbs are Crocus tommasinianus (nicknamedTommies), a late-winter-to-early-spring blooming species with pale lilac and reddish-purple blooms and, in the words of Hortus Third, a “tunic finely reticulate.” Natives of the mountains in southeast Europe (Bulgaria, Hungary, Albania), they should have no problems with our Z4/5 winters. The planting went smoothly until we had several days of rain. It then become very difficult to get the wet, gummy soil out of the planter. But by last Thursday, we only had about 100 crocus left to plant.
• Ringo and Sisyphus. Since we are involved in this crocus project and will soon do a dormant winter re-seeding of the grass in these two eastern lawn segments, I decided we should determine a permanent location for the two iron spheres, affectionately known as Ringo and Sisyphus. Although there have been conversations about creating cement foundations for the spheres, I’ve decided to provide them with a wood chips base, which might help set them off from the surrounding lawn. While I had no problem positioning Ringo, Sisyphus proved uncooperative. No matter how I rotated the sphere, it never looked quite right–though I finally settled on a positioning that would provide maximum stability.
• Dahlias and Gladiolas. All of the dahlia and peacock orchid tubers were dug up, cleaned, trimmed, and stored in three bins of peat moss. This was not a great year for dahlia blooms (the blooms came late and were never prolific), but digging them up reveals that many of the plants focused their energy into the production of new tubers. The peacock orchids (members of the Gladiola family), which generated three months of blooms over the summer, also produced hundreds of new tubers. Assuming they store well, we should have plenty of corms to give away in the spring. This fall I did not add any moisture to the peat. Last year the peat became too damp, and we lost some of the dahlia tubers.
• 275 Tulip Bulbs. Once the dahlia beds were cleared, I planted 100 Flair and 25 Tubergen’s Gem tulips in the “J” bed and 75 Blushing Beauty and 25 Tubergen’s Gem tulips in the smaller “E” bed. The Blushing Beauty tulips are described on the Van Engelen website as an elegant, late-bloom variety that display “aureolin-yellow, blushing rosy-red toward [the] petals' edges with interior, pink-rimmed, canary-yellow bases.” The Flairs on the opposite side of the garden are supposed to be an early-to-mid-season tulip with red and yellow blooms. The Gems (Tulipa clusiana) are a shorter, mid-season species tulip with yellow and red blooms. Known to be very hardy (approved for Zone 2 winters), I’m hoping they will prove to be dependable naturalizers. These two beds were planted with tulips last year, and we probably still have a few viable bulbs, so this fall I planted the new bulbs in a random arrangement, hoping that any survivors from last year’s planting would look like they were simply part of an intentionally informal planting scheme.
• 100 Daffodils and 100 Tulips. Earlier this fall I decided to do a complete replanting of the berm above the rain garden and the south drainage channel in the “G” bed. Three years ago I had planted some ajuga and a wonderful group of persicaria in the area, but this year the persicaria failed to emerge and the ajuga were completely overrun by the gooseneck, asters, and goldenrod. In October I spent an afternoon thoroughly turning over every inch of soil, trying to remove every root I could find. I’m sure I’ve missing some obstinate gooseneck roots, but now other flowers should have a fighting chance. Last week I planted a Colorblend mix of 100 daffodils in the berm and 100 species tulips (Tulipa dasystemon) along the border in front of the daffodils.
• 25 Trout Lilies. I planted the trout lilies in groups of 4-5 bulbs along the gravel walkway on both sides of the pergola. They are an odd shape, imperfect cylinders with roots at one end and an emerging shoot at the other. I planted them so they were resting at about a 60 degree angle, 3-4 inches from each other, covered with 3-4 inches of soil, plus some mulch.
• 10 Iris Reticulata Eye Catcher bulbs. They are small iris, should only reach 5-7 inches in height, with white, deep blue, or yellow blooms in early spring. To find a space for them in the crevice garden, I had to remove large clumps of the small sedum I brought from home. The sedum loves the crevice garden, but it is an exuberant spreader and it would gladly take over the entire bed if it had its way. My research indicated the iris needs good draining and needs to be at least 3 inches deep. The crevice garden has excellent drainage, but in several instances, I had difficulty creating enough depth because I kept running into the slabs of limestone that create the rock crevices found throughout this bed.
• 5 Gladiator Alliums. The large bulbs are supposed to produce large lilac-pink blooms in late spring. So far all the allium I’ve planted in the garden have done well, and I have high expectations for these new additions. I planted them next to the grape hyacinths in a corner of the “C” bed where I had just cleared away an immigrant colony of Canada goldenrod. I planted them about 5" from each other and tried to get their roots about 6 inches underground.
• 100 Wolf’s Bane. These were planted at the front of the B1 and B2 beds. These corms are tricky to plant because it’s hard to distinguish their tops from their bottoms. I planted them in 3" holes, occasionally two to a hole, often planting them sideways and letting them decide what direction they wanted to grow. I still have another 100 wolf’s bane intended for the “C” and “L” borders.
• 100 Turkestanica Tulips. These are a species tulip that I hope will become a naturalizer. I planted most of them along the front of the “D” border, and one clump on the opposite side of the garden around the light post at the west end of the “K” bed. I think their white blooms with yellow or orange centers will make a marvelous visual addition to the garden, assuming they look even half as good as they appear in the Van Engelen photos. On the other hand, they are reputed to have a rather unpleasant odor, and so we’ll find out what 100 of them will smell like in an enclosed garden.
• 100 Red Tulips. Planted about 60 of these tulips under the espalier crab tree in the M2 bed. We’ve had red tulips there for two springs, but only a few emerged this past spring, and in planting the bulbs this November, I did not encounter any survivors. I planted the remaining red tulips at the back of the two raised “J” beds.
• 5 Schubertii Allium. These large bulbs were planted in the back of the “I” bed, amongst a colony of Solomon’s Seal. I had hoped to move these shade-loving perennials to the east end of the bed earlier this fall, a job that was never accomplished, so now they have these 5 allium mixed in with them. Perhaps next spring the Solomon's Seals will get moved.
• One unexpected event in early November. When I arrived at the garden one morning, I discovered a black handbag next to a park bench. All the compartments were unzipped and the only items left in the bag were a cellphone and a charger. My assumption is that the handbag was stolen, money and other valuables were removed, and the bag was dumped over the garden wall. When I took the bag to the Security Office in Gage Union, no one was there so I left the bag with a student at the Information Desk, providing her with a quick summary of how I discovered the bag and my suspicions about its history. I am not optimistic that the bag and owner will ever be reunited.
• My red wigglers in the earthworm bin are becoming much faster in processing the food scraps I provide them. I don’t know their numbers, but the mature red wigglers have evidently been producing hungry babies. In addition to shredded newspapers and uncooked kitchen leftovers (e.g., potatoes, onions, apples, winter squash, bananas, tea leaves), I started giving them some finely chopped up maple and oak leaves. I’ve got plenty.
Monday Morning Garden Report: 15 October 2018
As I walked around the garden this morning, it was evident the chlorophyll is in retreat and the garden has become a mosaic of orange, brown, russet, red, gray, and yellow. While the imagery may suggest decline and old-age, I find these moments of sunny October mornings peaceful and refreshing. Perhaps the garden and I share a sense of accomplishment, knowing we successfully made it to the end of the year. Of course, it wasn’t perfect. There’s ample evidence of my failures in design and execution. But, overall, things look pretty good. We all deserve a few months of rest in preparation for the next cycle of above-the-ground growth in the spring.
While the garden does not exhibit masses of resplendent blooms, many flowers still have a few late season blossoms, hanging on until the bitter end, hoping a pollinator might still be canvassing the neighborhood. This morning I was pleasantly surprised to find over 50 different plant species with one or more blooms. Many were tucked away in protected corners, easily overlooked. Here are some of the flowers I found blooming in the middle of October, at least a few days before our first fall frost.
• Asters: Every year I remove about half of the garden’s New England asters, but they are insistent self-seeders, and at this season their blue/magenta blossoms are the garden’s primary source of color, particularly notable with the large patch near the NW gate; always a favorite with the Monarch butterflies and many bees (the only pollinators I observed this morning were on the asters and the dahlias).
• Black-Eyed Susan Vine: a prolific self-seeding annual with dozens of vines crawling over every plant in the middle of the “I” bed; some lovely little yellow blossoms, though I’ve decided this vine is too aggressive for this neighborhood.
• Butterfly bush (Buddleia davidii): despite reading admonitions to remove butterfly bushes because they detract butterflies from more valuable native species, I still cherish our two Buddleia, their lovely blue flowers initially appearing in the middle of the summer and still going strong.
• Catmint: quiet, nonstop blooming throughout the summer; will continue until we have a hard freeze.
• Cosmos: the cosmos I planted in the north dahlia bed were slow to grow and slow to start blooming, but now they are doing beautifully; the combination of the cosmos, dahlias, and peacock orchids have worked well together, producing the most successful flower border in September and October.
• Coreopsis: some of the annual, self-seeding plains coreopsis are still blooming in both dahlia beds; the perennial Route 66 coreopsis in the “I” bed is also producing fresh blooms.
• Cranesbill: the Roxanne has been incredible, a steady of sequence of gorgeous light blue blooms beginning in the early summer and continuing nonstop; both in bloom production and the tightness of its overall form, the Roxanne is an impressive improvement on its parent, Johnson’s blue; an ideal front-of-border plant, it deserves expanded usage next year.
• Blue Bell Browallia: the first time I’ve grown these from seed, and they make a delightful potted flower; now in their peak bloom period.
• Dahlias: they were planted late and did not grow as large as last year; I’m particularly disappointed with the small number of blooms on the Bishop Llandaff dahlias and my two Kelvin Floodlight dahlias never did bloom; nevertheless, the “J” bed of dahlias (assisted by the cosmos and peacock orchids) has been marvelous the past six weeks.
• Daisies: a few ox-eye daisies popped up, but what caught my attention this morning was a group of beautiful white blooms on a Michaelmas daisy partially hidden under a Joe Pye weed in the “F” bed.
• Daylilies: just a few re-bloomers, primarily the Stella d’oro, but this morning in the “L” bed I found an unnamed daylily with two lovely and quite fragrant milky yellow blooms.
• Dianthus: I was slow in cutting back the ‘Firewitch’ dianthus in the “C” bed, but it has now begun to produce a few autumn blooms; we need to plant more of these next spring; it’s a great front-of-border plant with three-season appeal.
• Dwarf Larkspur: a small group of dwarf larkspur in one of the raised “J” beds, their blue and white blooms in their third bloom cycle; we could use more of these small larkspur in these raised beds; they nicely complement the snow-in-summer (which has bounced back from the summer heat with lovely silver-gray foliage but no second round of blooms).
• Fennel: I cut back the fennel in the herb garden earlier this summer, and I’m surprised how well it responded, the largest plant now covered with several dozen flower heads.
• Fleabane: yes, it’s a weed, but I always leave a few of these aster-family flowers at the back of several flower beds because of the hundreds of dainty, daisy-like blooms on each plant.
• Goldenrod: several patches of Canada goldenrod throughout the garden (though just a small percentage of the goldenrod here four years ago); most of this goldenrod will be dug up and composted once they are finished blooming, leaving a few small patches at the back of a couple of flower beds.
• Grandfather’s Whiskers: I initially called these self-seeding annuals “spider plants,” but once I discovered the name “Grandfather’s Whiskers,” I couldn’t let that go; just a couple lingering pink blooms in the crevice garden, their favorite locale.
• Hibiscus: perhaps reignited by the heavy rainfall and warm weather, in late September both the hibiscus started producing new buds and they each have several deep burgundy flowers; an unexpected gift for early fall.
• Honeysuckle: I suspect most people entering the NW gate don’t notice that the nearby honeysuckle has dozens of fragrant yellow-white blooms; although most of the plant did not survive last winter, it now looks stronger than ever; unfortunately, the honeysuckle in the “G” bed was slow to start growing this spring and it never did produce any blooms.
• Hyssop: many of the shorter members of this mint family member have just begun to bloom, topped with their lovely blue flower spikes.
• Joe Pye Weeds: the older Joe Pye are all past their prime, but I was not expecting to see so many blooms on smaller, first-year Joe Pye weeds, their magenta blooms just now opening.
• Kniphofia: one single yellow bloom on the potted red-hot poker plant; it needs to be moved into the greenhouse before we get a hard freeze.
• Lavender: the lavender transplanted from the herb garden to the new sundial flower bed in front of the gazebo has done very well and is now in its prime bloom period, its tiny flowers a perfect complement to the silver-gray foliage.
• Mallow: the mallow at the back of the herb garden began blooming in August and are still producing many attractive purple and white blossoms.
• Mums: two of the mums I purchased three years ago from Bluestone Perennials are still alive and generating a few October blooms, but the most successful mums are the ones I purchased late in the fall from Hy-Vee the year before; I never dreamed they would become such dependable perennials.
• Nasturtiums: we have one pot of nasturtiums, slow to develop, but they have produced a host of variegated yellow blooms the past month.
• Oregano: hard to believe that in the spring I was worried the oregano in a raised “E” bed had survived the winter; not only did it survive, but has been in constant bloom for at least three months.
• Peacock Orchid: planted these gladiola tubers in six flower beds, and they have all done well; an eye-catching flower with a unique, enticing fragrance (one visitor described it as like vanilla).
• Queen Anne’s Lace: four years ago these wild carrots were a primary source of flowers for the east end of the garden, but I’ve steadily been reducing their role in the garden, and this morning I only saw one Queen Anne with a white flower head just beginning to open.
• Russian Sage: last winter and this summer we lost half of our Russian sage plants, but there’s one Perovskia in the “I” bed that is over 4' tall and has been steadily blooming since the middle of the summer; it’s too large for the front of the border, but I have no intention to move it.
• Spiderwort: I’m constantly digging up and composting these plants, but their short-lived blue blooms are precious jewels.
• Stonecrop: the tall stonecrop are still producing some marvelous heads of light purple blooms that will turn an attractive russet-brown as they mature; unfortunately the row of stonecrop in the “D” bed have been over-run by the expanding obedient plants; one task this fall is to separate those two competitors, probably by moving the stonecrop closer to the front of the border.
• Toad lilies: I showed these blooms to visitors a couple of weeks ago, and I think they were shocked to see such an exotic-looking flower in the garden; because of their location, these lilies are rarely noticed by visitors; perhaps they deserve a large sign, advising anyone passing by to “check this out!”
• Verbena bonariensis: one flower that I always identify by its genus/species name; several wonderful clumps of this self-seeding annual in the “G” bed; they really like the rocky rain garden channel.
Other plants in bloom not listed above include a clematis, several rose bushes, several sunflowers, several sedums, a planter of marigolds, a pot of celosia, and one lilyturf. Sundial photo (taken at 10:45 am according to the sundial) on October 10, when the gazania, four o-clocks, and lamb's tail still had fresh blooms.
As I walked around the garden this morning, it was evident the chlorophyll is in retreat and the garden has become a mosaic of orange, brown, russet, red, gray, and yellow. While the imagery may suggest decline and old-age, I find these moments of sunny October mornings peaceful and refreshing. Perhaps the garden and I share a sense of accomplishment, knowing we successfully made it to the end of the year. Of course, it wasn’t perfect. There’s ample evidence of my failures in design and execution. But, overall, things look pretty good. We all deserve a few months of rest in preparation for the next cycle of above-the-ground growth in the spring.
While the garden does not exhibit masses of resplendent blooms, many flowers still have a few late season blossoms, hanging on until the bitter end, hoping a pollinator might still be canvassing the neighborhood. This morning I was pleasantly surprised to find over 50 different plant species with one or more blooms. Many were tucked away in protected corners, easily overlooked. Here are some of the flowers I found blooming in the middle of October, at least a few days before our first fall frost.
• Asters: Every year I remove about half of the garden’s New England asters, but they are insistent self-seeders, and at this season their blue/magenta blossoms are the garden’s primary source of color, particularly notable with the large patch near the NW gate; always a favorite with the Monarch butterflies and many bees (the only pollinators I observed this morning were on the asters and the dahlias).
• Black-Eyed Susan Vine: a prolific self-seeding annual with dozens of vines crawling over every plant in the middle of the “I” bed; some lovely little yellow blossoms, though I’ve decided this vine is too aggressive for this neighborhood.
• Butterfly bush (Buddleia davidii): despite reading admonitions to remove butterfly bushes because they detract butterflies from more valuable native species, I still cherish our two Buddleia, their lovely blue flowers initially appearing in the middle of the summer and still going strong.
• Catmint: quiet, nonstop blooming throughout the summer; will continue until we have a hard freeze.
• Cosmos: the cosmos I planted in the north dahlia bed were slow to grow and slow to start blooming, but now they are doing beautifully; the combination of the cosmos, dahlias, and peacock orchids have worked well together, producing the most successful flower border in September and October.
• Coreopsis: some of the annual, self-seeding plains coreopsis are still blooming in both dahlia beds; the perennial Route 66 coreopsis in the “I” bed is also producing fresh blooms.
• Cranesbill: the Roxanne has been incredible, a steady of sequence of gorgeous light blue blooms beginning in the early summer and continuing nonstop; both in bloom production and the tightness of its overall form, the Roxanne is an impressive improvement on its parent, Johnson’s blue; an ideal front-of-border plant, it deserves expanded usage next year.
• Blue Bell Browallia: the first time I’ve grown these from seed, and they make a delightful potted flower; now in their peak bloom period.
• Dahlias: they were planted late and did not grow as large as last year; I’m particularly disappointed with the small number of blooms on the Bishop Llandaff dahlias and my two Kelvin Floodlight dahlias never did bloom; nevertheless, the “J” bed of dahlias (assisted by the cosmos and peacock orchids) has been marvelous the past six weeks.
• Daisies: a few ox-eye daisies popped up, but what caught my attention this morning was a group of beautiful white blooms on a Michaelmas daisy partially hidden under a Joe Pye weed in the “F” bed.
• Daylilies: just a few re-bloomers, primarily the Stella d’oro, but this morning in the “L” bed I found an unnamed daylily with two lovely and quite fragrant milky yellow blooms.
• Dianthus: I was slow in cutting back the ‘Firewitch’ dianthus in the “C” bed, but it has now begun to produce a few autumn blooms; we need to plant more of these next spring; it’s a great front-of-border plant with three-season appeal.
• Dwarf Larkspur: a small group of dwarf larkspur in one of the raised “J” beds, their blue and white blooms in their third bloom cycle; we could use more of these small larkspur in these raised beds; they nicely complement the snow-in-summer (which has bounced back from the summer heat with lovely silver-gray foliage but no second round of blooms).
• Fennel: I cut back the fennel in the herb garden earlier this summer, and I’m surprised how well it responded, the largest plant now covered with several dozen flower heads.
• Fleabane: yes, it’s a weed, but I always leave a few of these aster-family flowers at the back of several flower beds because of the hundreds of dainty, daisy-like blooms on each plant.
• Goldenrod: several patches of Canada goldenrod throughout the garden (though just a small percentage of the goldenrod here four years ago); most of this goldenrod will be dug up and composted once they are finished blooming, leaving a few small patches at the back of a couple of flower beds.
• Grandfather’s Whiskers: I initially called these self-seeding annuals “spider plants,” but once I discovered the name “Grandfather’s Whiskers,” I couldn’t let that go; just a couple lingering pink blooms in the crevice garden, their favorite locale.
• Hibiscus: perhaps reignited by the heavy rainfall and warm weather, in late September both the hibiscus started producing new buds and they each have several deep burgundy flowers; an unexpected gift for early fall.
• Honeysuckle: I suspect most people entering the NW gate don’t notice that the nearby honeysuckle has dozens of fragrant yellow-white blooms; although most of the plant did not survive last winter, it now looks stronger than ever; unfortunately, the honeysuckle in the “G” bed was slow to start growing this spring and it never did produce any blooms.
• Hyssop: many of the shorter members of this mint family member have just begun to bloom, topped with their lovely blue flower spikes.
• Joe Pye Weeds: the older Joe Pye are all past their prime, but I was not expecting to see so many blooms on smaller, first-year Joe Pye weeds, their magenta blooms just now opening.
• Kniphofia: one single yellow bloom on the potted red-hot poker plant; it needs to be moved into the greenhouse before we get a hard freeze.
• Lavender: the lavender transplanted from the herb garden to the new sundial flower bed in front of the gazebo has done very well and is now in its prime bloom period, its tiny flowers a perfect complement to the silver-gray foliage.
• Mallow: the mallow at the back of the herb garden began blooming in August and are still producing many attractive purple and white blossoms.
• Mums: two of the mums I purchased three years ago from Bluestone Perennials are still alive and generating a few October blooms, but the most successful mums are the ones I purchased late in the fall from Hy-Vee the year before; I never dreamed they would become such dependable perennials.
• Nasturtiums: we have one pot of nasturtiums, slow to develop, but they have produced a host of variegated yellow blooms the past month.
• Oregano: hard to believe that in the spring I was worried the oregano in a raised “E” bed had survived the winter; not only did it survive, but has been in constant bloom for at least three months.
• Peacock Orchid: planted these gladiola tubers in six flower beds, and they have all done well; an eye-catching flower with a unique, enticing fragrance (one visitor described it as like vanilla).
• Queen Anne’s Lace: four years ago these wild carrots were a primary source of flowers for the east end of the garden, but I’ve steadily been reducing their role in the garden, and this morning I only saw one Queen Anne with a white flower head just beginning to open.
• Russian Sage: last winter and this summer we lost half of our Russian sage plants, but there’s one Perovskia in the “I” bed that is over 4' tall and has been steadily blooming since the middle of the summer; it’s too large for the front of the border, but I have no intention to move it.
• Spiderwort: I’m constantly digging up and composting these plants, but their short-lived blue blooms are precious jewels.
• Stonecrop: the tall stonecrop are still producing some marvelous heads of light purple blooms that will turn an attractive russet-brown as they mature; unfortunately the row of stonecrop in the “D” bed have been over-run by the expanding obedient plants; one task this fall is to separate those two competitors, probably by moving the stonecrop closer to the front of the border.
• Toad lilies: I showed these blooms to visitors a couple of weeks ago, and I think they were shocked to see such an exotic-looking flower in the garden; because of their location, these lilies are rarely noticed by visitors; perhaps they deserve a large sign, advising anyone passing by to “check this out!”
• Verbena bonariensis: one flower that I always identify by its genus/species name; several wonderful clumps of this self-seeding annual in the “G” bed; they really like the rocky rain garden channel.
Other plants in bloom not listed above include a clematis, several rose bushes, several sunflowers, several sedums, a planter of marigolds, a pot of celosia, and one lilyturf. Sundial photo (taken at 10:45 am according to the sundial) on October 10, when the gazania, four o-clocks, and lamb's tail still had fresh blooms.
Monday Morning Garden Report: 24 September 2018
While preparing a section of the lawn for re-seeding this morning, I looked up and saw a group of students walking into the garden. Eventually, I spotted their two instructors and surmised this was an FYS class on a field trip. Responding to the instructors’ request, I provided the students with an impromptu 3-minute garden intro. My unprepared remarks included a comment that while many of the plants in the garden were Midwest natives, we had representative plants from all over the world. To demonstrate my comment, I pointed to the bloom of a peacock orchid (see photo below) and informed the class here was an example of a plant from the Himalayas.
Later in the day, as I was thinking about what I said (and failed to say), I remembered that those peacock orchids are in the gladiola family and are from Africa, not the Himalayas. Although it’s not likely any students will recall what I said about the origin of a flower they may never see again, I thought it best to send the instructors an email thanking them for bringing their students to the garden and informing them of my Himalayan error.
While lamenting my faulty recollection, it occurred to me that a potentially beneficial penance might be to construct a table listing many of the plants in the garden and their place of origin (or, at least, where the reference sources I consult suspect were the homes of their ancestors). For this Monday Morning Garden Report I’ve identified the native land(s) for over 170 flowers, shrubs, and grasses in Coe’s garden, arranging them alphabetically by scientific name (accompanied by a prevalent common name). Perhaps the list confirms that a visit to Coe’s Alumni House Garden is an economical way to travel around the globe, coming in close contact with representative plants from most corners of the world. ~Bob
This is a link to the complete 9-page list: Native Range for 170 Flowers, Shrubs, and Grasses in Alumni House Garden
Achillea ptarmica ‘Ballerina’ (Yarrow): Europe
Agastache scrophulariaefolia (Purple Giant Hyssop): North America
Ageratina altissima (White snakeroot): North America (east of the Rockies)
Ajuga reptans (Bugleweed): European; quite common in Great Britain.
Alcea rosea (Hollyhocks): Southwest China
Alchemilla mollis (Lady’s mantle): Carpathian Mountains (central and eastern Europe; Rumania and western Ukraine)
Allium schoenoprasum (Chives): Northern hemisphere (North America, Europe, Asia)
Amsonia hubrichtii (Threadleaf bluestar): Arkansas, Oklahoma
Anaphalis margaritacea (Pearly everlasting): North America
While preparing a section of the lawn for re-seeding this morning, I looked up and saw a group of students walking into the garden. Eventually, I spotted their two instructors and surmised this was an FYS class on a field trip. Responding to the instructors’ request, I provided the students with an impromptu 3-minute garden intro. My unprepared remarks included a comment that while many of the plants in the garden were Midwest natives, we had representative plants from all over the world. To demonstrate my comment, I pointed to the bloom of a peacock orchid (see photo below) and informed the class here was an example of a plant from the Himalayas.
Later in the day, as I was thinking about what I said (and failed to say), I remembered that those peacock orchids are in the gladiola family and are from Africa, not the Himalayas. Although it’s not likely any students will recall what I said about the origin of a flower they may never see again, I thought it best to send the instructors an email thanking them for bringing their students to the garden and informing them of my Himalayan error.
While lamenting my faulty recollection, it occurred to me that a potentially beneficial penance might be to construct a table listing many of the plants in the garden and their place of origin (or, at least, where the reference sources I consult suspect were the homes of their ancestors). For this Monday Morning Garden Report I’ve identified the native land(s) for over 170 flowers, shrubs, and grasses in Coe’s garden, arranging them alphabetically by scientific name (accompanied by a prevalent common name). Perhaps the list confirms that a visit to Coe’s Alumni House Garden is an economical way to travel around the globe, coming in close contact with representative plants from most corners of the world. ~Bob
This is a link to the complete 9-page list: Native Range for 170 Flowers, Shrubs, and Grasses in Alumni House Garden
Achillea ptarmica ‘Ballerina’ (Yarrow): Europe
Agastache scrophulariaefolia (Purple Giant Hyssop): North America
Ageratina altissima (White snakeroot): North America (east of the Rockies)
Ajuga reptans (Bugleweed): European; quite common in Great Britain.
Alcea rosea (Hollyhocks): Southwest China
Alchemilla mollis (Lady’s mantle): Carpathian Mountains (central and eastern Europe; Rumania and western Ukraine)
Allium schoenoprasum (Chives): Northern hemisphere (North America, Europe, Asia)
Amsonia hubrichtii (Threadleaf bluestar): Arkansas, Oklahoma
Anaphalis margaritacea (Pearly everlasting): North America
Monday Morning Garden Report: 17 September 2018
This morning 13 FYS students spent 50 minutes in the Alumni House Garden. During the class session, students were asked to walk around the garden and to write 3-5 observations and 3-5 questions about the garden. Copied below are the students’ written observations and most of their questions–in each case followed by my response to their queries. ~Bob
Observations
• I like the rustic look on the metal accents, although I know it’s just because they’re a little rusty–but it’s cool!
• English garden style at the entrance.
• Unique spider webs.
• The bees love those little white flowers. The monarchs are on what I think is lavender. [My comment: we do have some lavender in the garden, but I’m guessing these monarchs were on the hyssop flowers, which resemble lavender.]
• Identification name plates.
• Lots of hostas.
• Many plants grow in clusters and don’t intermix with other clusters.
• There are a lot of dead leaves, but there is still fruit on the trees.
• I like the trees in every corner and the lights, a good contrast to the rest of the garden.
• The herb garden is a nice touch.
• There are tons of plants that look like they just sprouted up on their own.
• I like the “secret not so secret” paths.
• Too many bugs.
• There are a lot more bees in the areas that smell really nice.
• Shrubbery lining the walls.
• A wide variety of flowers, many butterflies and birds.
• Some place it seems like plants are growing randomly, wildly, some are more organized.
• One yellow flower smells like vanilla.
• The butterflies seem to prefer the left side, the bees prefer the right.
• The sundial with the flowers is really cool.
• Art placements are nice.
• A lot of butterflies (monarchs) and lots of flies.
• The fountain gives a nice background noise.
• Seems to be quite a few dead plants.
• Honey bees on a long purple plant.
• Bigger bees were with the lighter colored flowers.
• A lot of areas remind me of Monet paintings.
• Multiple species of yellow flowers pollinated by carpenter bees.
• Some plants are very tall, some short.
Students’ Questions and a Gardener’s Responses
• How many flowers are planted? Does anyone else plant them? [We are in the process of doing a complete census of all the different “flowers” (including trees and shrubs) currently in the garden. The total count will be over 300 different flowers, both perennials and annuals. I am responsible for deciding which flowers are included in the garden and where they will be planted.]
• Is there a rain garden here too? [Yes, in the summer of 2015 we constructed a rain garden in the southeast corner of the garden to slow down runoff going into the storm sewers. The rain garden is filled with a 30" deep mixture of compost, sand, and mulch; the plants chosen for the rain garden are ones that don’t mind having wet feet (e.g., astilbe, Japanese iris, turtleheads, lead plants, meadow rue, river oats, a variegated sedge).]
• What is the shiny ball? [It is called a gazing ball (other names include yard globe, garden globe, yard ball). They first appeared in European gardens in the 13th century and were made of glass; Coe’s gazing ball is stainless steel. They gained popularity in the 1930s, becoming associated with the Art Deco movement. Some people find them rather tacky, but I enjoy how they reflect plants around them.]
• Why is there an empty space in the middle of the garden? [The open space allows visitors to see in a few seconds the basic layout of the garden. You can quickly observe what’s in bloom and where you might want to go for a closer look at particular flower beds. Many English gardens are laid out with this design: an open grass lawn surrounded by flower beds inside brick garden walls.]
• Are the areas by the fountain planted? [The fountain is surrounded by a gravel walkway that we attempt to keep clear of vegetation. Going back to at least the 16th century, English gardens frequently used gravel for the garden paths so that visitors could walk around and not get their feet wet, even after a heavy rain.]
• Is there anything that will be put in the areas covered with mulch? [Yes, later this fall or in the spring those areas will be planted with grass–a mixture of a fescue, three kinds of Kentucky blue grass, and three kinds of perennial rye grass.]
• Does height of a plant affect its growth patterns? [Yes, though the particular pattern depends on the plant, location, soil, etc Some of the taller plants in the garden (for example, the Joe Pye weed, goldenrod, switch grass, Indian grass, false indigo, hibiscus) produce totally new growth each year. On the other hand, the shrubs (such as the yews, lilac bushes, dogwood, forsythia, viburnum) survive through the winter and must be pruned once or twice a year so they don’t become too large for their location.]
• What kind of trees are planted in the garden? [The eight trees are all flowering crab; six of them were planted when the garden was created in the 1990s.]
• Sculptures? [Most of the sculptures in the garden were done either by Cara Briggs Farmer (an artist with a studio in Marion) or Tom Nelson (a Wisconsin blacksmith/sculptor). In the southeast corner is “The Little Gardener,” a fiberglass reproduction of a bronze piece sculpted by Sylvia Shaw Judson that was originally commissioned by Jacqueline Kennedy for the White House garden. The most recent addition are the wind chimes, which were just installed two weeks ago.]
• Why do some plants look scorched? [Once they are finished blooming, many perennials will close down their above-ground operations for the year. Hot weather in August and September produces substantial stress on these plants. We will cut back some of them to the ground, but others will be left undisturbed–such as many of the purple coneflowers–because their seed heads can provide food for birds that visit the garden in the fall and winter.]
• Is the wooden thing a sundial? [Yes, it is a sundial that records both the hour of the day and the seasonal equinoxes and solstices. The current sundial, constructed for Coe’s longitude and latitude, is actually a wooden model for an iron sundial that will be installed either this fall or next spring. The garden has three other sundials–though one has been temporarily removed so it can be reinstalled in a new location.]
• Why aren’t there any vegetables? [Most English gardens in the 16th and 17th centuries would have had a mixture of vegetables, fruits, and vegetables, but in the last 200 years there has been a trend to separate ornamental flowers gardens from vegetable and fruit gardens. The designers of Coe’s garden (landscape architects at Iowa State University) designed this as an ornamental flower garden, and we have stayed with that design.]
• Are there flowers that were not planted but grew because of pollination from insects? [Yes, many of the most important plants in the garden are the results of serendipitous self-seeding: Joe Pye weed, goldenrod, asters, false indigo, spiderwort, white snakeroot, milkweed, sweet Annie, fleabane, ox-eye daisies, cranesbill, purple coneflower, black-eyed Susan, columbine, hyssop, spider plant, spurge, Queen Anne’s lace, Kansas gayfeather, river oats, and (alas) several weeds, such as dandelions, creeping Charlie, horsetail, foxtail, purslane). One might note that a high percentage of these skillful self-seeders are Midwest natives. A substantial portion of our gardening work involves digging up and removing thousands of these volunteer offspring that have planted themselves where we don’t want them.]
• Does it matter where the plant is? How do you decide where a plant is planted? [It can make a huge difference where a plant is located. For example, some flowers like full sun, others like sun in the morning and partial shade in the afternoon; some prefer filtered sunlight and others like more shade; some require frequent moisture and others relish dry, rocky soil that drains quickly; some prefer acidic soil, others prefer alkaline soil with a higher pH. It is a constant challenge, trying to find the best location for each plant–and in some instances discovering that despite our best efforts, a particular plant will not do well in this garden.]
• How long did it take to plant everything? [The garden is constantly evolving, new varieties replacing predecessors. For example, the two beds in front of the patio were at one time rose beds that also had acquired a large number of New England asters. Four years ago almost all the rose bushes and asters were replaced with over 30 different daylilies, which require significantly less care and maintenance than the roses.]
• Why is quaking grass called quaking grass? [Briza media, the quaking grass we planted in the Coe garden three years ago, acquired its common name because of the thin stalks of flower clusters and dry seed heads that quiver (i.e., “quake”) in the slightest breeze.]
• Where does the water come from? [We depend on rainfall. The garden does have an underground irrigation system, but we have not used it this year, and our goal is to create a garden that rarely requires watering.]
• Do these giant red flowers bloom later than most? [The hibiscus with the large red blooms usually begin blooming in July and continue until the middle of August. For whatever reason, this year they have initiated a second bloom cycle, with a new sequence of flowers opening this past weekend.]
• Do any plants grow better when placed together? [There probably are significant and mutually beneficial relationships among different plants, but we are just beginning to understand how these plants communicate with each other and how those messages influence their ability to thrive.]
• Why did you use different kinds of wood chips in the middle of the garden? [The two sections of the lawn closest to the Alumni House are covered with a wood mulch that will be reused later this fall to cover the soil throughout the garden. This mulch reduces moisture evaporation while breaking down and turning into a nutrient-rich compost. The other two sections of lawn at the east end of the garden are covered with eight cubic yards of tan-colored hard wood chips, which will be reused for the wood chip paths and an area surrounding the garden shed and greenhouse. These wood chips will eventually break down into compost, but the speed of that disintegration is much slower than for the mulch.]
• The garden’s most common butterfly? [The first butterflies to appear in the spring are the cabbage whites and they will probably be the last butterflies to be seen in the fall. Last year we had an incredible number of painted ladies, but this year the monarchs have probably been the second most common butterfly, particularly in the past month. The cabbage whites produce larva that can be very destructive of some vegetables–such as cabbages and broccoli–but fortunately for us we don’t attempt to grow any of those vegetables in this garden. The most destructive insects in the garden would be the Japanese beetles.]
• Are students allowed to partake in the gardening? [Yes. If you ever want to help with the gardening, send me an email and we can meet to discuss some options.]
• Is the garden open to students? [Yes, the NW garden gate is unlocked from 8:00 am to 5:00 pm, Monday through Friday. The garden is also unlocked on the weekends whenever I’m working in the garden.]
~Bob Marrs
Email: [email protected]
This morning 13 FYS students spent 50 minutes in the Alumni House Garden. During the class session, students were asked to walk around the garden and to write 3-5 observations and 3-5 questions about the garden. Copied below are the students’ written observations and most of their questions–in each case followed by my response to their queries. ~Bob
Observations
• I like the rustic look on the metal accents, although I know it’s just because they’re a little rusty–but it’s cool!
• English garden style at the entrance.
• Unique spider webs.
• The bees love those little white flowers. The monarchs are on what I think is lavender. [My comment: we do have some lavender in the garden, but I’m guessing these monarchs were on the hyssop flowers, which resemble lavender.]
• Identification name plates.
• Lots of hostas.
• Many plants grow in clusters and don’t intermix with other clusters.
• There are a lot of dead leaves, but there is still fruit on the trees.
• I like the trees in every corner and the lights, a good contrast to the rest of the garden.
• The herb garden is a nice touch.
• There are tons of plants that look like they just sprouted up on their own.
• I like the “secret not so secret” paths.
• Too many bugs.
• There are a lot more bees in the areas that smell really nice.
• Shrubbery lining the walls.
• A wide variety of flowers, many butterflies and birds.
• Some place it seems like plants are growing randomly, wildly, some are more organized.
• One yellow flower smells like vanilla.
• The butterflies seem to prefer the left side, the bees prefer the right.
• The sundial with the flowers is really cool.
• Art placements are nice.
• A lot of butterflies (monarchs) and lots of flies.
• The fountain gives a nice background noise.
• Seems to be quite a few dead plants.
• Honey bees on a long purple plant.
• Bigger bees were with the lighter colored flowers.
• A lot of areas remind me of Monet paintings.
• Multiple species of yellow flowers pollinated by carpenter bees.
• Some plants are very tall, some short.
Students’ Questions and a Gardener’s Responses
• How many flowers are planted? Does anyone else plant them? [We are in the process of doing a complete census of all the different “flowers” (including trees and shrubs) currently in the garden. The total count will be over 300 different flowers, both perennials and annuals. I am responsible for deciding which flowers are included in the garden and where they will be planted.]
• Is there a rain garden here too? [Yes, in the summer of 2015 we constructed a rain garden in the southeast corner of the garden to slow down runoff going into the storm sewers. The rain garden is filled with a 30" deep mixture of compost, sand, and mulch; the plants chosen for the rain garden are ones that don’t mind having wet feet (e.g., astilbe, Japanese iris, turtleheads, lead plants, meadow rue, river oats, a variegated sedge).]
• What is the shiny ball? [It is called a gazing ball (other names include yard globe, garden globe, yard ball). They first appeared in European gardens in the 13th century and were made of glass; Coe’s gazing ball is stainless steel. They gained popularity in the 1930s, becoming associated with the Art Deco movement. Some people find them rather tacky, but I enjoy how they reflect plants around them.]
• Why is there an empty space in the middle of the garden? [The open space allows visitors to see in a few seconds the basic layout of the garden. You can quickly observe what’s in bloom and where you might want to go for a closer look at particular flower beds. Many English gardens are laid out with this design: an open grass lawn surrounded by flower beds inside brick garden walls.]
• Are the areas by the fountain planted? [The fountain is surrounded by a gravel walkway that we attempt to keep clear of vegetation. Going back to at least the 16th century, English gardens frequently used gravel for the garden paths so that visitors could walk around and not get their feet wet, even after a heavy rain.]
• Is there anything that will be put in the areas covered with mulch? [Yes, later this fall or in the spring those areas will be planted with grass–a mixture of a fescue, three kinds of Kentucky blue grass, and three kinds of perennial rye grass.]
• Does height of a plant affect its growth patterns? [Yes, though the particular pattern depends on the plant, location, soil, etc Some of the taller plants in the garden (for example, the Joe Pye weed, goldenrod, switch grass, Indian grass, false indigo, hibiscus) produce totally new growth each year. On the other hand, the shrubs (such as the yews, lilac bushes, dogwood, forsythia, viburnum) survive through the winter and must be pruned once or twice a year so they don’t become too large for their location.]
• What kind of trees are planted in the garden? [The eight trees are all flowering crab; six of them were planted when the garden was created in the 1990s.]
• Sculptures? [Most of the sculptures in the garden were done either by Cara Briggs Farmer (an artist with a studio in Marion) or Tom Nelson (a Wisconsin blacksmith/sculptor). In the southeast corner is “The Little Gardener,” a fiberglass reproduction of a bronze piece sculpted by Sylvia Shaw Judson that was originally commissioned by Jacqueline Kennedy for the White House garden. The most recent addition are the wind chimes, which were just installed two weeks ago.]
• Why do some plants look scorched? [Once they are finished blooming, many perennials will close down their above-ground operations for the year. Hot weather in August and September produces substantial stress on these plants. We will cut back some of them to the ground, but others will be left undisturbed–such as many of the purple coneflowers–because their seed heads can provide food for birds that visit the garden in the fall and winter.]
• Is the wooden thing a sundial? [Yes, it is a sundial that records both the hour of the day and the seasonal equinoxes and solstices. The current sundial, constructed for Coe’s longitude and latitude, is actually a wooden model for an iron sundial that will be installed either this fall or next spring. The garden has three other sundials–though one has been temporarily removed so it can be reinstalled in a new location.]
• Why aren’t there any vegetables? [Most English gardens in the 16th and 17th centuries would have had a mixture of vegetables, fruits, and vegetables, but in the last 200 years there has been a trend to separate ornamental flowers gardens from vegetable and fruit gardens. The designers of Coe’s garden (landscape architects at Iowa State University) designed this as an ornamental flower garden, and we have stayed with that design.]
• Are there flowers that were not planted but grew because of pollination from insects? [Yes, many of the most important plants in the garden are the results of serendipitous self-seeding: Joe Pye weed, goldenrod, asters, false indigo, spiderwort, white snakeroot, milkweed, sweet Annie, fleabane, ox-eye daisies, cranesbill, purple coneflower, black-eyed Susan, columbine, hyssop, spider plant, spurge, Queen Anne’s lace, Kansas gayfeather, river oats, and (alas) several weeds, such as dandelions, creeping Charlie, horsetail, foxtail, purslane). One might note that a high percentage of these skillful self-seeders are Midwest natives. A substantial portion of our gardening work involves digging up and removing thousands of these volunteer offspring that have planted themselves where we don’t want them.]
• Does it matter where the plant is? How do you decide where a plant is planted? [It can make a huge difference where a plant is located. For example, some flowers like full sun, others like sun in the morning and partial shade in the afternoon; some prefer filtered sunlight and others like more shade; some require frequent moisture and others relish dry, rocky soil that drains quickly; some prefer acidic soil, others prefer alkaline soil with a higher pH. It is a constant challenge, trying to find the best location for each plant–and in some instances discovering that despite our best efforts, a particular plant will not do well in this garden.]
• How long did it take to plant everything? [The garden is constantly evolving, new varieties replacing predecessors. For example, the two beds in front of the patio were at one time rose beds that also had acquired a large number of New England asters. Four years ago almost all the rose bushes and asters were replaced with over 30 different daylilies, which require significantly less care and maintenance than the roses.]
• Why is quaking grass called quaking grass? [Briza media, the quaking grass we planted in the Coe garden three years ago, acquired its common name because of the thin stalks of flower clusters and dry seed heads that quiver (i.e., “quake”) in the slightest breeze.]
• Where does the water come from? [We depend on rainfall. The garden does have an underground irrigation system, but we have not used it this year, and our goal is to create a garden that rarely requires watering.]
• Do these giant red flowers bloom later than most? [The hibiscus with the large red blooms usually begin blooming in July and continue until the middle of August. For whatever reason, this year they have initiated a second bloom cycle, with a new sequence of flowers opening this past weekend.]
• Do any plants grow better when placed together? [There probably are significant and mutually beneficial relationships among different plants, but we are just beginning to understand how these plants communicate with each other and how those messages influence their ability to thrive.]
• Why did you use different kinds of wood chips in the middle of the garden? [The two sections of the lawn closest to the Alumni House are covered with a wood mulch that will be reused later this fall to cover the soil throughout the garden. This mulch reduces moisture evaporation while breaking down and turning into a nutrient-rich compost. The other two sections of lawn at the east end of the garden are covered with eight cubic yards of tan-colored hard wood chips, which will be reused for the wood chip paths and an area surrounding the garden shed and greenhouse. These wood chips will eventually break down into compost, but the speed of that disintegration is much slower than for the mulch.]
• The garden’s most common butterfly? [The first butterflies to appear in the spring are the cabbage whites and they will probably be the last butterflies to be seen in the fall. Last year we had an incredible number of painted ladies, but this year the monarchs have probably been the second most common butterfly, particularly in the past month. The cabbage whites produce larva that can be very destructive of some vegetables–such as cabbages and broccoli–but fortunately for us we don’t attempt to grow any of those vegetables in this garden. The most destructive insects in the garden would be the Japanese beetles.]
• Are students allowed to partake in the gardening? [Yes. If you ever want to help with the gardening, send me an email and we can meet to discuss some options.]
• Is the garden open to students? [Yes, the NW garden gate is unlocked from 8:00 am to 5:00 pm, Monday through Friday. The garden is also unlocked on the weekends whenever I’m working in the garden.]
~Bob Marrs
Email: [email protected]
Monday Morning Garden Report: 10 September 2018
This morning was spent trying to clean up the “I” flower bed in the NE corner of the garden. This 400 square foot “field” has several plants that should be coming into their prime as summer fades into fall: two varieties of goldenrod, New England asters, brown-eyed Susan vines, sneezeweeds (3 different Helenium autumnale cultivars), several re-blooming daylilies at the front of the border, at the back of the border a late-flowering yellow daylily (whose name escapes me at the moment), a few Mexican sunflowers (Tithonia Torch, an annual typically 5-6' tall by August but this year maxing out at 12" and are now buried at the back of the border), some lingering sunflowers in their third month of blooming, a large aromatic aster just coming into bloom, a large Russian sage in full bloom, a lone hollyhock with a couple of small pink blooms, and a group of hardy mums that won’t start blooming until October.
The overall impression rendered by this flower bed is chaos. Despite a few differentiated plant zones, most of these plants appear to be fighting with each other over the limited space. And behind this wild drama is the row of 7-8' tall yews that have not been pruned since the spring, with many small branches popping up above their flattop haircuts. For four hours this morning, I concentrated on trying to bring hints of order to this landscape. Nothing got transplanted. All my efforts were on removal, hoping an unforeseen order might emerge as I pruned and pulled up and dug out and carried away two large bags of unwanted stems, leaves, and roots.
• I did get the yews pruned. This accomplishment first required the removal of several small trees and a large pokeweed growing between the yews and the fence. The footpath behind the yews is only about 1' wide, so any sizable impediments had to be removed. At least in this stretch there are no hawthorn branches overhanging the cedar fence. With the other fence segments, one recurrent task is cutting back the hawthorn branches determined to grow over the fence and intermingle with the yews.
• The west end of the “I” bed looks the best. Earlier this summer I dug up and moved two blue fescue (planted on each side of a light fixture) to the east end of the “D” bed where they would receive less mid-day summer sun. They were replaced with two variegated Liriope lilyturf, which so far have done well, producing new yellow/green leaves and several salvia-like, bluish-purple flower spikes.
• Another success has been the consolidation of the mustang peonies into a single corral. Every year I discover peonies popping up under the yews or flowering crabs. I have moved several of them to the “I” bed–where this spring they generated a few blooms and reasonably attractive foliage. Unfortunately several small trees (not sure of their identity but the leaves suggest they’re from an elm family) have sprung up among the peonies. Today I brought in my spade and extricated three of these 2-3' trees, while hoping to minimize any impact on the recently transplanted peonies.
• Although the lilyturf, peonies, sneezeweed, weigela, and salvias have done well at the west end, several other residents have not thrived. Of the three hardy mums planted here in the spring of 2015, only one has survived–just barely. A Red Satin coreopsis and a Jacob Cline bee balm–each planted in 2015–are also struggling. My current plan is to dig them all up, bring in a load of fresh compost, and give everyone a fresh start.
• One problem with the middle of this “I” border is that three plants–from left to right, an aromatic aster, a false indigo, and a Russian sage–have become so large they are notably out of balance with their neighbors. The aromatic aster (Symphyotrichum oblongifolium), which is just beginning to produce its small white blossoms, has become much wider than I had expected, covering up two daylilies and a miniature daisy that blooms earlier in the summer. Several feet away, the Russian sage, planted at the front of the border, has expanded in a similar fashion. I chose this location for the Perovskia after visiting the botanical garden in Chicago and noting how they have effectively used Russian sage as a front-of-border plant spilling over the walkway, softening the straight line borders between paths and flower beds. Our own Russian sage has become an attractive plant, with lovely silver-blue flowers that have been in bloom most of the summer, but it is too large for the location. I’m not sure what’s the best solution, but I'm inclined to remove the much smaller stonecrop and campion that surround it and turn this area into a patch of Russian sage. It might be a good partner for the large false indigo (Baptisia australis) that sits nearby in the middle of the bed.
• The area behind the aromatic aster is still a disaster, even after I cleared out miscellaneous weeds and foxtail earlier this morning. The remaining plants include one hollyhock, the tall daylilies, New England asters, many clumps of aromatic hyssop (a favorite of many pollinators), many stalks of Solomon’s seal, and several dozen black-eyed Susan vines–an annual enthusiastically growing over everything. I like the BES vines, but the bloom to foliage ratio is low, the blooms are small, and the blooms are frequently closed–all of which results in an area that looks like it’s being over run by a pale cousin of field bindweed. The Solomon’s seal, another personal favorite, has also been a disappointment, failing to rise above the plants in front of it. One option is to move all the Solomon’s seal to a bare area at the east bed of the bed, in the shade of the flowering crab. I’ll then try convincing the hyssop to take over the whole area, perhaps with the assistance of one or two more aromatic asters–a resilient Midwest native. After experimenting with so many different plants in this area, it’s time to simplify, select 4-5 plants that can claim this terrain as their own, and move the small fry elsewhere. Concerning the BES vines, assuming they self-seed, I’ll dig up a few and see if I can coax them to grow up the garden fence, either in the A2 or M2 beds.
• One resident of the “I” bed I have not mentioned is the Salvia azurea 'Nekan'. Of the 5-6 salvias in the garden, this is the tallest and the last to bloom, producing elegant light-blue flower spikes (see photo following this paragraph) that appear when relatively few flowers are blooming in late August and early September. At the moment, this salvia looks lost, but I’m inclined to think the best option is the same as with the hyssop, asters, and Russian sage: add a couple more of these salvia, allowing them to dominate their assigned domain. That strategy has been beneficial in the successful expansion of the obedient plants (false dragonheads, Physostegia virgiana) in the “D” and “M1" beds. These native perennials have established a wide swath in both beds and are now in full bloom when most of the flowers in those beds are finished for the year. There seems to be a recurrent message in this report: “simplify and consolidate.” After five years experimenting with so many different cultivar options, it’s time to give more prominence to the winners, most of whom are Midwest natives.
This morning was spent trying to clean up the “I” flower bed in the NE corner of the garden. This 400 square foot “field” has several plants that should be coming into their prime as summer fades into fall: two varieties of goldenrod, New England asters, brown-eyed Susan vines, sneezeweeds (3 different Helenium autumnale cultivars), several re-blooming daylilies at the front of the border, at the back of the border a late-flowering yellow daylily (whose name escapes me at the moment), a few Mexican sunflowers (Tithonia Torch, an annual typically 5-6' tall by August but this year maxing out at 12" and are now buried at the back of the border), some lingering sunflowers in their third month of blooming, a large aromatic aster just coming into bloom, a large Russian sage in full bloom, a lone hollyhock with a couple of small pink blooms, and a group of hardy mums that won’t start blooming until October.
The overall impression rendered by this flower bed is chaos. Despite a few differentiated plant zones, most of these plants appear to be fighting with each other over the limited space. And behind this wild drama is the row of 7-8' tall yews that have not been pruned since the spring, with many small branches popping up above their flattop haircuts. For four hours this morning, I concentrated on trying to bring hints of order to this landscape. Nothing got transplanted. All my efforts were on removal, hoping an unforeseen order might emerge as I pruned and pulled up and dug out and carried away two large bags of unwanted stems, leaves, and roots.
• I did get the yews pruned. This accomplishment first required the removal of several small trees and a large pokeweed growing between the yews and the fence. The footpath behind the yews is only about 1' wide, so any sizable impediments had to be removed. At least in this stretch there are no hawthorn branches overhanging the cedar fence. With the other fence segments, one recurrent task is cutting back the hawthorn branches determined to grow over the fence and intermingle with the yews.
• The west end of the “I” bed looks the best. Earlier this summer I dug up and moved two blue fescue (planted on each side of a light fixture) to the east end of the “D” bed where they would receive less mid-day summer sun. They were replaced with two variegated Liriope lilyturf, which so far have done well, producing new yellow/green leaves and several salvia-like, bluish-purple flower spikes.
• Another success has been the consolidation of the mustang peonies into a single corral. Every year I discover peonies popping up under the yews or flowering crabs. I have moved several of them to the “I” bed–where this spring they generated a few blooms and reasonably attractive foliage. Unfortunately several small trees (not sure of their identity but the leaves suggest they’re from an elm family) have sprung up among the peonies. Today I brought in my spade and extricated three of these 2-3' trees, while hoping to minimize any impact on the recently transplanted peonies.
• Although the lilyturf, peonies, sneezeweed, weigela, and salvias have done well at the west end, several other residents have not thrived. Of the three hardy mums planted here in the spring of 2015, only one has survived–just barely. A Red Satin coreopsis and a Jacob Cline bee balm–each planted in 2015–are also struggling. My current plan is to dig them all up, bring in a load of fresh compost, and give everyone a fresh start.
• One problem with the middle of this “I” border is that three plants–from left to right, an aromatic aster, a false indigo, and a Russian sage–have become so large they are notably out of balance with their neighbors. The aromatic aster (Symphyotrichum oblongifolium), which is just beginning to produce its small white blossoms, has become much wider than I had expected, covering up two daylilies and a miniature daisy that blooms earlier in the summer. Several feet away, the Russian sage, planted at the front of the border, has expanded in a similar fashion. I chose this location for the Perovskia after visiting the botanical garden in Chicago and noting how they have effectively used Russian sage as a front-of-border plant spilling over the walkway, softening the straight line borders between paths and flower beds. Our own Russian sage has become an attractive plant, with lovely silver-blue flowers that have been in bloom most of the summer, but it is too large for the location. I’m not sure what’s the best solution, but I'm inclined to remove the much smaller stonecrop and campion that surround it and turn this area into a patch of Russian sage. It might be a good partner for the large false indigo (Baptisia australis) that sits nearby in the middle of the bed.
• The area behind the aromatic aster is still a disaster, even after I cleared out miscellaneous weeds and foxtail earlier this morning. The remaining plants include one hollyhock, the tall daylilies, New England asters, many clumps of aromatic hyssop (a favorite of many pollinators), many stalks of Solomon’s seal, and several dozen black-eyed Susan vines–an annual enthusiastically growing over everything. I like the BES vines, but the bloom to foliage ratio is low, the blooms are small, and the blooms are frequently closed–all of which results in an area that looks like it’s being over run by a pale cousin of field bindweed. The Solomon’s seal, another personal favorite, has also been a disappointment, failing to rise above the plants in front of it. One option is to move all the Solomon’s seal to a bare area at the east bed of the bed, in the shade of the flowering crab. I’ll then try convincing the hyssop to take over the whole area, perhaps with the assistance of one or two more aromatic asters–a resilient Midwest native. After experimenting with so many different plants in this area, it’s time to simplify, select 4-5 plants that can claim this terrain as their own, and move the small fry elsewhere. Concerning the BES vines, assuming they self-seed, I’ll dig up a few and see if I can coax them to grow up the garden fence, either in the A2 or M2 beds.
• One resident of the “I” bed I have not mentioned is the Salvia azurea 'Nekan'. Of the 5-6 salvias in the garden, this is the tallest and the last to bloom, producing elegant light-blue flower spikes (see photo following this paragraph) that appear when relatively few flowers are blooming in late August and early September. At the moment, this salvia looks lost, but I’m inclined to think the best option is the same as with the hyssop, asters, and Russian sage: add a couple more of these salvia, allowing them to dominate their assigned domain. That strategy has been beneficial in the successful expansion of the obedient plants (false dragonheads, Physostegia virgiana) in the “D” and “M1" beds. These native perennials have established a wide swath in both beds and are now in full bloom when most of the flowers in those beds are finished for the year. There seems to be a recurrent message in this report: “simplify and consolidate.” After five years experimenting with so many different cultivar options, it’s time to give more prominence to the winners, most of whom are Midwest natives.
Monday Morning Garden Report: 13 August 2018
The notes for this “morning” report were composed on Monday afternoon, beginning at 4:15. I recall the time because as I began my walk through the garden, a man (perhaps a father of a current Kohawk) was looking at the small sundial in the “L” flower, and it appeared he was trying to determine how to read the gnomon’s shadow. I pointed out how the shadow line fell between the III & the IV on the “dial” (the sundial’s metal plate) and explained that because the sundial remains on God’s Time (as my Dad would have said), it was one hour behind Daylight Savings Time. The man responded with a smile and a simple “Thanks.” Here are 15 other observations from my afternoon walk on this beautiful August afternoon.
(1) The two elderberry bushes on each side of the SW gate are covered with small, dark purple berries. In previous years various birds of CR’s NE quadrant have been voracious consumers of this crop, but so far this August I’ve not seen a single bird visiting this corner deli. The terrain around the elderberry is beginning to turn purple from all the fallen berries. On the other hand, the goldfinches have returned to the garden, attracted by the prolific supply of purple coneflower seeds. [Later in the week, after having composed these notes, the birds found the elderberries and the fruit was nearly all consumed.]
(2) No Japanese beetles on any of the roses or hollyhocks or basil or butterfly bushes. I did see a few on several hibiscus and hyssop blossoms, but I’m beyond caring. It’s been another exhausting summer attempting to keep the J beetles from defoliating their favorite plants, but the beetles never munch on the leaves of the hibiscus or hyssop. While they can do significant damage to the hibiscus blooms, those blooms are short-lived even without the beetles drilling holes in their petals. I do find it interesting the J beetles never fly away from the hyssop, hibiscus, or rose blooms when I’m gathering them into their final soapy bath. When on the basil and rose leaves, they often scatter, but they seem to be thoroughly inebriated once they begin drinking the juices of their favorite flowers. [At end of this report is a photo of hibiscus blooms before the J. beetles found them.]
(3) In the flowers beds in front of the patio, only two daylilies are still blooming, two small purple blooms (on a daylily whose name I can never remember) and three Frans Hals blooms. The latter, though advertised as a mid-season bloomer, was one of the first daylilies to bloom and a month later they are still plugging along, producing beautiful 4-5" orange and yellow bicolor flowers. I’ve cut back most of the Stella d’oro, and I suspect they will produce a few more blooms once they rebound from the barber’s surgery.
(4) The black-eyed Susans are currently the most notable source of color (other than green) in the garden, but they look best when viewed at a distance. As I get closer to each clump, it’s apparent the petals are looking ragged and beginning to lose their bright yellowness. And many of the leaves are turning brown and black from whatever species of leaf spot fungus ails them.
(5) The hyssop apparently provide an endless supply of nutrients for the bumblebees. In one clump of giant hyssop blossoms under the pergola, I counted 15 bees, industriously working their way from one blossom spike to another, and they are at it all day long. The goldenrod soldier beetles are also enamored with the hyssop, with perhaps 40-50 of these yellow and black visitors on these same hyssop blossoms. In many instances a pair of soldier beetles are copulating, I assume the female is the one focusing on the flowers while the male is riding on her back.
(6) While walking along the garden path between the “A1" and “A2" beds, I was accompanied by a monarch, who circled around me several times, flying close to my left shoulder, though never landing. This fellow was quite relaxed, moving his wings just enough to keep afloat–a lovely, gentle companion for an afternoon stroll. Later in the afternoon, resting on a viburnum not far from the soldier beetles’ mid-August orgy, I encountered two monarchs in coitus, attached while facing in opposite directions. When I moved a few steps closer, the monarch on top flew away, showing no signs of being encumbered by the extra baggage of its partner.
(7) The purple coneflowers and the obedient plants, two of my favorite perennials, have recently stopped producing new blooms for the year. In compensation, however, are several new arrivals, most notably the flowers just beginning to open on the tall stonecrop in several beds on the west side of the garden and the boltonia in front of the garden mirror at the west end of the “F” bed. Unfortunately, this summer’s boltonia have become top-heavy and will need support as they enter their primary bloom cycle.
(8) So far a total of two dahlia blooms. Last week we had a single purple dahlia blossom in the “J” bed; this week, a second purple and a single red bloom on a Bishop of Llandaff dahlia in the “E” bed. The dahlias do not look as large and vigorous as they were last summer, but I was late in getting them planted. I just read a passage in Eleanor Perényi’s Green Thoughts (the most enlightening and entertaining gardening book I’ve read this year) advocating the benefits of planting dahlias as early as possible in the spring. I did give them a dose of supplemental organic fertilizer two weeks ago, hoping that might encourage more growth, but it is unlikely we will see much dahlia action before September.
(9) Several flowers have been steadily producing blooms through the summer. By periodic deadheading, we’ve managed to keep the Maltese Cross (or London Pride, as I frequently think of them) producing a few red blossoms in a herb bed dominated by the gray and green foliage of rue, mint, rosemary, tarragon, sage, and oregano. Also in that bed is a thriving clump of creeping thyme that has been quietly blooming since June–the tiny lavender blossoms so inconspicuous that most garden visitors would never see them. The same is true of the lovely small white flowers on the oregano, rarely noticed by humans but the garden’s black wasps certainly know how to find these tiny blossoms.
(10) The one area of the garden that has now entered its prime blooming season is the rain garden. Both the blue and cardinal lobelia are in full bloom. In Green Thoughts Perényi shares her infatuation with blue flowers and her frustration in finding plants that reliably produce truly blue flowers. I don’t recall she mentions blue lobelia, dependable sponsor of a stunning blue flower.
(11) Hanging over the blue lobelia are several large globes of small flowers on an iron butterfly ironweed (Vernonia lettermanii). Both the plant and the flowers resemble New England asters, and I’m thinking that next year I should cut the stalks back in June because they can’t handle the top-heavy flower heads. In front of this ironweed is another, much shorter ironweed cultivar with identical flowers but in much smaller clusters and with quite different foliage, resembling a Moonbeam coreopsis or a cosmos.
(12) Another flower just beginning to open up are the turtleheads (Chelone lyonii). The rain garden has two varieties, both producing lovely, late-summer pink flowers. The taller variety (with the lighter green leaves) that I transplanted from my backyard are also the first to bloom, perhaps because they get more sun. They should be followed in another week by the turtleheads I started from seed in 2015 and planted shortly after the rain garden was constructed.
(13) One surprise: while looking at the rain garden, I discovered that the blackberry lily (Belamcanda chinensis ‘Hello Yellow’) next to the pergola had a single small, delicate orange blossom–another flower that visitors would seldom notice. Later, I detected another blackberry lily, which had found a home in the rain garden’s peninsula. I’m wondering how it got there. I certainly don’t recall planting it there.
(14) In March I started from seed ten Celosia argentea. Several of them died before they were transplanted, several ended up in a flower pot currently in front of grass quad’s SW bench, and two were planted on each side of a group of sweet peas along one of the rain garden’s drainage channels. Although one celosia soon died, the other has exploded with new stems and leaves and flower plumes–a remarkable resurrection. Although the sweet peas failed to thrive, producing only a few red blossoms, the situation was saved by the unexpected appearance of several dozen volunteer Verbena bonariensis. These guys ignored my efforts to get them to self-seed in a fake whiskey barrel loaded with fertile soil and fresh compost. Instead the 2017 verbenas cast their seeds into the rocky drainage channel, confident this was the ideal place for the summer of 2018. They are now in full bloom, producing one of the garden’s most attractive late-summer flower beds and a magnet for the local monarchs. Sometimes it’s all serendipity.
(15) Another of my favorite flowers beds is the small collections of perennials (lavender, a civilized version of creeping jenny, an unidentified sedum) and annuals (gazanias, heliotropes, four o’clocks, Joey lamb’s tail) planted around the new sundial in front of the gazebo. The lamb’s tail (Ptilotus exaltatus) is an Australian native and a new addition to the garden, covered with 2-3" fuzzy, lavender and white flower puffballs. Not only does the plant have a full bouquet of gorgeous blooms, but it has required no care and should continue blooming until the first frost. As for the four o’clocks, they seemed a fitting addition to this sundial garden because of their name and the way their blooms open and close at different times of the day (though I’ve read this cycle is driven by changes in temperature, not sunlight). On the other hand, the gazania blossoms’ opening and closing is governed by the sunlight’s arrival and departure. I was disappointed to visit the sundial bed this afternoon at 5:00 pm and discover the four o-clocks were still not open. Even when I came back 20 minutes later, their blossoms were obstinately closed. We may have to keep the garden open later in the day so any four o-clock enthusiasts can enjoy the joyous blooms of Mirabilus jalapa (which loosely translates, an “admirable flower from Guatemala”).
The notes for this “morning” report were composed on Monday afternoon, beginning at 4:15. I recall the time because as I began my walk through the garden, a man (perhaps a father of a current Kohawk) was looking at the small sundial in the “L” flower, and it appeared he was trying to determine how to read the gnomon’s shadow. I pointed out how the shadow line fell between the III & the IV on the “dial” (the sundial’s metal plate) and explained that because the sundial remains on God’s Time (as my Dad would have said), it was one hour behind Daylight Savings Time. The man responded with a smile and a simple “Thanks.” Here are 15 other observations from my afternoon walk on this beautiful August afternoon.
(1) The two elderberry bushes on each side of the SW gate are covered with small, dark purple berries. In previous years various birds of CR’s NE quadrant have been voracious consumers of this crop, but so far this August I’ve not seen a single bird visiting this corner deli. The terrain around the elderberry is beginning to turn purple from all the fallen berries. On the other hand, the goldfinches have returned to the garden, attracted by the prolific supply of purple coneflower seeds. [Later in the week, after having composed these notes, the birds found the elderberries and the fruit was nearly all consumed.]
(2) No Japanese beetles on any of the roses or hollyhocks or basil or butterfly bushes. I did see a few on several hibiscus and hyssop blossoms, but I’m beyond caring. It’s been another exhausting summer attempting to keep the J beetles from defoliating their favorite plants, but the beetles never munch on the leaves of the hibiscus or hyssop. While they can do significant damage to the hibiscus blooms, those blooms are short-lived even without the beetles drilling holes in their petals. I do find it interesting the J beetles never fly away from the hyssop, hibiscus, or rose blooms when I’m gathering them into their final soapy bath. When on the basil and rose leaves, they often scatter, but they seem to be thoroughly inebriated once they begin drinking the juices of their favorite flowers. [At end of this report is a photo of hibiscus blooms before the J. beetles found them.]
(3) In the flowers beds in front of the patio, only two daylilies are still blooming, two small purple blooms (on a daylily whose name I can never remember) and three Frans Hals blooms. The latter, though advertised as a mid-season bloomer, was one of the first daylilies to bloom and a month later they are still plugging along, producing beautiful 4-5" orange and yellow bicolor flowers. I’ve cut back most of the Stella d’oro, and I suspect they will produce a few more blooms once they rebound from the barber’s surgery.
(4) The black-eyed Susans are currently the most notable source of color (other than green) in the garden, but they look best when viewed at a distance. As I get closer to each clump, it’s apparent the petals are looking ragged and beginning to lose their bright yellowness. And many of the leaves are turning brown and black from whatever species of leaf spot fungus ails them.
(5) The hyssop apparently provide an endless supply of nutrients for the bumblebees. In one clump of giant hyssop blossoms under the pergola, I counted 15 bees, industriously working their way from one blossom spike to another, and they are at it all day long. The goldenrod soldier beetles are also enamored with the hyssop, with perhaps 40-50 of these yellow and black visitors on these same hyssop blossoms. In many instances a pair of soldier beetles are copulating, I assume the female is the one focusing on the flowers while the male is riding on her back.
(6) While walking along the garden path between the “A1" and “A2" beds, I was accompanied by a monarch, who circled around me several times, flying close to my left shoulder, though never landing. This fellow was quite relaxed, moving his wings just enough to keep afloat–a lovely, gentle companion for an afternoon stroll. Later in the afternoon, resting on a viburnum not far from the soldier beetles’ mid-August orgy, I encountered two monarchs in coitus, attached while facing in opposite directions. When I moved a few steps closer, the monarch on top flew away, showing no signs of being encumbered by the extra baggage of its partner.
(7) The purple coneflowers and the obedient plants, two of my favorite perennials, have recently stopped producing new blooms for the year. In compensation, however, are several new arrivals, most notably the flowers just beginning to open on the tall stonecrop in several beds on the west side of the garden and the boltonia in front of the garden mirror at the west end of the “F” bed. Unfortunately, this summer’s boltonia have become top-heavy and will need support as they enter their primary bloom cycle.
(8) So far a total of two dahlia blooms. Last week we had a single purple dahlia blossom in the “J” bed; this week, a second purple and a single red bloom on a Bishop of Llandaff dahlia in the “E” bed. The dahlias do not look as large and vigorous as they were last summer, but I was late in getting them planted. I just read a passage in Eleanor Perényi’s Green Thoughts (the most enlightening and entertaining gardening book I’ve read this year) advocating the benefits of planting dahlias as early as possible in the spring. I did give them a dose of supplemental organic fertilizer two weeks ago, hoping that might encourage more growth, but it is unlikely we will see much dahlia action before September.
(9) Several flowers have been steadily producing blooms through the summer. By periodic deadheading, we’ve managed to keep the Maltese Cross (or London Pride, as I frequently think of them) producing a few red blossoms in a herb bed dominated by the gray and green foliage of rue, mint, rosemary, tarragon, sage, and oregano. Also in that bed is a thriving clump of creeping thyme that has been quietly blooming since June–the tiny lavender blossoms so inconspicuous that most garden visitors would never see them. The same is true of the lovely small white flowers on the oregano, rarely noticed by humans but the garden’s black wasps certainly know how to find these tiny blossoms.
(10) The one area of the garden that has now entered its prime blooming season is the rain garden. Both the blue and cardinal lobelia are in full bloom. In Green Thoughts Perényi shares her infatuation with blue flowers and her frustration in finding plants that reliably produce truly blue flowers. I don’t recall she mentions blue lobelia, dependable sponsor of a stunning blue flower.
(11) Hanging over the blue lobelia are several large globes of small flowers on an iron butterfly ironweed (Vernonia lettermanii). Both the plant and the flowers resemble New England asters, and I’m thinking that next year I should cut the stalks back in June because they can’t handle the top-heavy flower heads. In front of this ironweed is another, much shorter ironweed cultivar with identical flowers but in much smaller clusters and with quite different foliage, resembling a Moonbeam coreopsis or a cosmos.
(12) Another flower just beginning to open up are the turtleheads (Chelone lyonii). The rain garden has two varieties, both producing lovely, late-summer pink flowers. The taller variety (with the lighter green leaves) that I transplanted from my backyard are also the first to bloom, perhaps because they get more sun. They should be followed in another week by the turtleheads I started from seed in 2015 and planted shortly after the rain garden was constructed.
(13) One surprise: while looking at the rain garden, I discovered that the blackberry lily (Belamcanda chinensis ‘Hello Yellow’) next to the pergola had a single small, delicate orange blossom–another flower that visitors would seldom notice. Later, I detected another blackberry lily, which had found a home in the rain garden’s peninsula. I’m wondering how it got there. I certainly don’t recall planting it there.
(14) In March I started from seed ten Celosia argentea. Several of them died before they were transplanted, several ended up in a flower pot currently in front of grass quad’s SW bench, and two were planted on each side of a group of sweet peas along one of the rain garden’s drainage channels. Although one celosia soon died, the other has exploded with new stems and leaves and flower plumes–a remarkable resurrection. Although the sweet peas failed to thrive, producing only a few red blossoms, the situation was saved by the unexpected appearance of several dozen volunteer Verbena bonariensis. These guys ignored my efforts to get them to self-seed in a fake whiskey barrel loaded with fertile soil and fresh compost. Instead the 2017 verbenas cast their seeds into the rocky drainage channel, confident this was the ideal place for the summer of 2018. They are now in full bloom, producing one of the garden’s most attractive late-summer flower beds and a magnet for the local monarchs. Sometimes it’s all serendipity.
(15) Another of my favorite flowers beds is the small collections of perennials (lavender, a civilized version of creeping jenny, an unidentified sedum) and annuals (gazanias, heliotropes, four o’clocks, Joey lamb’s tail) planted around the new sundial in front of the gazebo. The lamb’s tail (Ptilotus exaltatus) is an Australian native and a new addition to the garden, covered with 2-3" fuzzy, lavender and white flower puffballs. Not only does the plant have a full bouquet of gorgeous blooms, but it has required no care and should continue blooming until the first frost. As for the four o’clocks, they seemed a fitting addition to this sundial garden because of their name and the way their blooms open and close at different times of the day (though I’ve read this cycle is driven by changes in temperature, not sunlight). On the other hand, the gazania blossoms’ opening and closing is governed by the sunlight’s arrival and departure. I was disappointed to visit the sundial bed this afternoon at 5:00 pm and discover the four o-clocks were still not open. Even when I came back 20 minutes later, their blossoms were obstinately closed. We may have to keep the garden open later in the day so any four o-clock enthusiasts can enjoy the joyous blooms of Mirabilus jalapa (which loosely translates, an “admirable flower from Guatemala”).
Monday Morning Garden Report: 23 July 2018
This is a continuation of my 16 July report, discussing Alumni House Garden plants that are inclined to plant themselves, often disregarding my preferences.
• Geranium sanguineum: bloody cranesbill, bloodred geranium. In 2014 there were three well-established clumps of cranesbill in front of the patio and a handful of small seedlings in several other beds; in the summers of 2015 and 2016, I collected these isolated progeny popping up in various locations and organized them into several new clumps in the “D”, “H”, and “M1" beds; although not all the baby cranesbill survived their transfer, enough did thrive and have now established themselves as effective front-of-border plantings throughout the garden; one of their most appealing qualities is the way they create and maintain these well-formed mounds of foliage throughout the summer.
• Gladiolus murielae (previously known as Acidantherus bicolor and Gladiolus acidanthera): peacock orchid, sword lily, acidanthera, Abyssinian gladiolus, fragrant gladiolus. Accompanying a daffodil bulb order three years ago was a free gift–a package of ten peacock orchid corms to be planted in the spring; much to my surprise, they thrived and produced these distinctively fragrant, elegantly shaped white blossoms; in digging them up for winter storage–since these East African natives are not winter hardy this far north--I also discovered the mother corms had produced many baby corms; this spring I had several hundred corms, many of which began to germinate several weeks before I got them planted; they have become one of my favorite “perennials,” and this summer will appear in several beds throughout the garden.
• Iris siberica: Siberian Iris. In 2014 there were three large groups of Siberian Iris at the east end of the garden and another small patch near the patio; one large clump in the “G” bed I divided and moved close to the front of the bed, framing the shrub rose, and they have quickly mastered the new territory; what I didn’t expect was many individual iris popping up in the rain garden, a habitat they find very hospitable; last fall I collected a group of these volunteers into a new clump in the rain garden, and this spring created a second group along the wood chip walkway in the “H” bed; their blooms don’t last more than a week, but they produce some of the garden's most beautiful flowers, and their foliage provides a strong year-around presence, acquiring a copper-brown tone in the fall.
• Liatris spicata: blazing star, Kansas gayfeather. In 2014 several of these were growing in the “C” bed, and each year they have added a few more plants, some of which have been transplanted to the “L” bed and the rain garden, revealing their ability to handle a wide range of moisture, sun, and soil conditions; in July these hardy Midwest natives produce sturdy, dense spikes of rich purple blooms.
• Lysimachia clethroides: gooseneck loosestrife. Although I love the plant’s curved racemes of small white flowers, particularly notable in shady areas, this gooseneck’s vigorous rhizomes are determined to acquire new territory; in the past two years, I’ve spent many hours corralling this hardy loosestrife into a few garden nooks where its expansive opportunities are severely limited by larger shrubs, garden walls, and covered walkways.
• Melissa officinalis: Lemon Balm. I only needed one Sweet Annie to provide enough progeny for the reminder of my gardening career; the same is true with lemon balm, a plant I purchased almost 40 years ago and have now spent every year since then digging up thousands of its offspring; the lemon balm I planted in the “A1" bed in 2016 loves that location, the mother plant surrounded by innumerable offspring (nearly all of which are terminated by a garden hoe).
• Nigella damascena: love-in-a-mist, ragged lady, devil in the bush. This annual in the buttercup family was one of Gertrude Jekyll’s favorites, and a few appeared in the “L” bed in the summer of 2014; they produce quite attractive seed heads, and each year the Nigella have expanded their range, now appearing in several beds at the west end of the garden; they are a small flower and don’t draw a lot of attention to themselves, but they are always a delightful discovery, quietly filling in spaces left bare at the front of a border.
• Penstemon digitalis ‘Husker Red’: beardtongue. One of my best decisions in the first summer working in the garden was planting several Husker Red penstemon in the “G” and “H” beds; via self-seeding–and some occasional transplanting–they have become one of the garden’s primary anchor plants; in the spring months their dark burgundy foliage provides a welcome contrast with the new green leaves of surrounding plants; a tough, hardy, drought-resistant native (refined by breeding at the University of Nebraska), the Perennial Plant Associations 1996 Plant of the Year.
•Phlox paniculata: garden phlox. The wild phlox in my backyard at home, having dramatically expanded in recent years, are now the dominant flower in July and August; several of the phlox in the Alumni House Garden are intentionally chosen cultivars, but there is an increasing number of native, self-sown garden phlox popping up throughout the garden, the white and lavender flowers doing well both in the full sun and in the garden’s shadier areas.
• Platycodon grandiflorus: balloon flower. I commented on this lovely flower several weeks ago in a Monday Morning report; this east Asia native is not an aggressive spreader, but in the past four years several patches have gracefully expanded their territory; the elegant, 2" blue blooms have become a primary July focal point in the “K” bed while offering significant patches of blue in several other beds (see photo at the end of this report).
• Solidago altissima: Canada goldenrod, tall goldenrod. I’m not certain about the species of the garden’s predominate goldenrod, but when I first started working in the garden, this goldenrod was a domineering presence throughout the garden; most of the goldenrod have been removed to make room for other flower options but they continue to pop up among the asters and other opportunistic self-seeders.
• Thunbergia alata: black-eyed Susan vine (unrelated to Rudbeckia hirta, the black-eyed Susan in the aster/daisy/sunflower family) . In the middle of the “I” bed is a small metal plant support, placed there two years ago to support these vines planted around its base; the vines thrived, growing much too large for the 3' tall tower, and soon flung themselves onto neighboring asters and hyssop; it turned out the T. alata flowers produced viable seeds and now the area produces dozens of the vines, which begin to appear in late June among the surrounding perennials; while this plant deserves a taller tower, the middle of the “I” bed shows no evidence of a coherent design, and this rambling member of the acanthus family casually mixes in with all its neighbors.
• Tradescantia virginiana: spiderwort. A tough, flexible, resilient native that can apparently thrive anywhere in the garden, whether in the rich, moist soil of the rain garden or the hard, clay soil underlying the gravel walkways; for every 99 spiderwort that I dig up and send to the compost pile, the remaining 1% provide welcome spring-time points of violet-blue blossoms (with yellow stamens); although each bloom only lasts for one day, each stem generates a sequence of new blossoms; rarely the center of attention, they render a welcome accompaniment to their neighbors; once the flowering period is finished–usually by the end of June–most of the teetering, top-heavy flower stems are cut back to the ground.
• Verbena bonariensis: tall verbena, South American vervain, and “verbena on a stick.” Formerly known as Verbena patagonic, both old and new species names pointing to the plant’s geographical origins; I fell in love with this South American native after frequent encounters in English gardens; a perennial shrub in southern zones, in Iowa it functions as a self-seeding annual, each year expanding its range in the “G” and “H” beds; the 3' tall see-through plants are topped by branching stems with 1-2" wide clusters of tiny light purple flowers that bloom from mid-July into the fall; identified as an invasive species in some areas of the southern United States–where it can survive as a perennial–there is no evidence of it being a problem in Iowa.
This is a continuation of my 16 July report, discussing Alumni House Garden plants that are inclined to plant themselves, often disregarding my preferences.
• Geranium sanguineum: bloody cranesbill, bloodred geranium. In 2014 there were three well-established clumps of cranesbill in front of the patio and a handful of small seedlings in several other beds; in the summers of 2015 and 2016, I collected these isolated progeny popping up in various locations and organized them into several new clumps in the “D”, “H”, and “M1" beds; although not all the baby cranesbill survived their transfer, enough did thrive and have now established themselves as effective front-of-border plantings throughout the garden; one of their most appealing qualities is the way they create and maintain these well-formed mounds of foliage throughout the summer.
• Gladiolus murielae (previously known as Acidantherus bicolor and Gladiolus acidanthera): peacock orchid, sword lily, acidanthera, Abyssinian gladiolus, fragrant gladiolus. Accompanying a daffodil bulb order three years ago was a free gift–a package of ten peacock orchid corms to be planted in the spring; much to my surprise, they thrived and produced these distinctively fragrant, elegantly shaped white blossoms; in digging them up for winter storage–since these East African natives are not winter hardy this far north--I also discovered the mother corms had produced many baby corms; this spring I had several hundred corms, many of which began to germinate several weeks before I got them planted; they have become one of my favorite “perennials,” and this summer will appear in several beds throughout the garden.
• Iris siberica: Siberian Iris. In 2014 there were three large groups of Siberian Iris at the east end of the garden and another small patch near the patio; one large clump in the “G” bed I divided and moved close to the front of the bed, framing the shrub rose, and they have quickly mastered the new territory; what I didn’t expect was many individual iris popping up in the rain garden, a habitat they find very hospitable; last fall I collected a group of these volunteers into a new clump in the rain garden, and this spring created a second group along the wood chip walkway in the “H” bed; their blooms don’t last more than a week, but they produce some of the garden's most beautiful flowers, and their foliage provides a strong year-around presence, acquiring a copper-brown tone in the fall.
• Liatris spicata: blazing star, Kansas gayfeather. In 2014 several of these were growing in the “C” bed, and each year they have added a few more plants, some of which have been transplanted to the “L” bed and the rain garden, revealing their ability to handle a wide range of moisture, sun, and soil conditions; in July these hardy Midwest natives produce sturdy, dense spikes of rich purple blooms.
• Lysimachia clethroides: gooseneck loosestrife. Although I love the plant’s curved racemes of small white flowers, particularly notable in shady areas, this gooseneck’s vigorous rhizomes are determined to acquire new territory; in the past two years, I’ve spent many hours corralling this hardy loosestrife into a few garden nooks where its expansive opportunities are severely limited by larger shrubs, garden walls, and covered walkways.
• Melissa officinalis: Lemon Balm. I only needed one Sweet Annie to provide enough progeny for the reminder of my gardening career; the same is true with lemon balm, a plant I purchased almost 40 years ago and have now spent every year since then digging up thousands of its offspring; the lemon balm I planted in the “A1" bed in 2016 loves that location, the mother plant surrounded by innumerable offspring (nearly all of which are terminated by a garden hoe).
• Nigella damascena: love-in-a-mist, ragged lady, devil in the bush. This annual in the buttercup family was one of Gertrude Jekyll’s favorites, and a few appeared in the “L” bed in the summer of 2014; they produce quite attractive seed heads, and each year the Nigella have expanded their range, now appearing in several beds at the west end of the garden; they are a small flower and don’t draw a lot of attention to themselves, but they are always a delightful discovery, quietly filling in spaces left bare at the front of a border.
• Penstemon digitalis ‘Husker Red’: beardtongue. One of my best decisions in the first summer working in the garden was planting several Husker Red penstemon in the “G” and “H” beds; via self-seeding–and some occasional transplanting–they have become one of the garden’s primary anchor plants; in the spring months their dark burgundy foliage provides a welcome contrast with the new green leaves of surrounding plants; a tough, hardy, drought-resistant native (refined by breeding at the University of Nebraska), the Perennial Plant Associations 1996 Plant of the Year.
•Phlox paniculata: garden phlox. The wild phlox in my backyard at home, having dramatically expanded in recent years, are now the dominant flower in July and August; several of the phlox in the Alumni House Garden are intentionally chosen cultivars, but there is an increasing number of native, self-sown garden phlox popping up throughout the garden, the white and lavender flowers doing well both in the full sun and in the garden’s shadier areas.
• Platycodon grandiflorus: balloon flower. I commented on this lovely flower several weeks ago in a Monday Morning report; this east Asia native is not an aggressive spreader, but in the past four years several patches have gracefully expanded their territory; the elegant, 2" blue blooms have become a primary July focal point in the “K” bed while offering significant patches of blue in several other beds (see photo at the end of this report).
• Solidago altissima: Canada goldenrod, tall goldenrod. I’m not certain about the species of the garden’s predominate goldenrod, but when I first started working in the garden, this goldenrod was a domineering presence throughout the garden; most of the goldenrod have been removed to make room for other flower options but they continue to pop up among the asters and other opportunistic self-seeders.
• Thunbergia alata: black-eyed Susan vine (unrelated to Rudbeckia hirta, the black-eyed Susan in the aster/daisy/sunflower family) . In the middle of the “I” bed is a small metal plant support, placed there two years ago to support these vines planted around its base; the vines thrived, growing much too large for the 3' tall tower, and soon flung themselves onto neighboring asters and hyssop; it turned out the T. alata flowers produced viable seeds and now the area produces dozens of the vines, which begin to appear in late June among the surrounding perennials; while this plant deserves a taller tower, the middle of the “I” bed shows no evidence of a coherent design, and this rambling member of the acanthus family casually mixes in with all its neighbors.
• Tradescantia virginiana: spiderwort. A tough, flexible, resilient native that can apparently thrive anywhere in the garden, whether in the rich, moist soil of the rain garden or the hard, clay soil underlying the gravel walkways; for every 99 spiderwort that I dig up and send to the compost pile, the remaining 1% provide welcome spring-time points of violet-blue blossoms (with yellow stamens); although each bloom only lasts for one day, each stem generates a sequence of new blossoms; rarely the center of attention, they render a welcome accompaniment to their neighbors; once the flowering period is finished–usually by the end of June–most of the teetering, top-heavy flower stems are cut back to the ground.
• Verbena bonariensis: tall verbena, South American vervain, and “verbena on a stick.” Formerly known as Verbena patagonic, both old and new species names pointing to the plant’s geographical origins; I fell in love with this South American native after frequent encounters in English gardens; a perennial shrub in southern zones, in Iowa it functions as a self-seeding annual, each year expanding its range in the “G” and “H” beds; the 3' tall see-through plants are topped by branching stems with 1-2" wide clusters of tiny light purple flowers that bloom from mid-July into the fall; identified as an invasive species in some areas of the southern United States–where it can survive as a perennial–there is no evidence of it being a problem in Iowa.
Monday Morning Garden Report: 16 July 2018
This morning, while doing some weeding, I was struck by the many plants in the garden who decided where they want to be located. No human chose the planting site. They planted themselves. Although since 2014 I have brought into the garden over 200 new flowers, shrubs, and grasses–plants chosen to fill a specific role in a specific location--the garden continues to be dominated by those plants that assume responsibility for distributing themselves, ignoring my plans and predispositions. Every year flowers appear in new locations, and they expect me to sanction their choice of neighbors. After I concluded this morning’s weeding efforts, I did a leisurely garden walk and jotted down the names of 35 flowers that have demonstrated a mind of their own, choosing when and where they want to appear. Below is an alphabetical list of 15 of those plants (ones from the “A-E” portion of the alphabet). In my next Monday Morning report, I will comment on the rest of the alphabet.
• Aquilegia canadensis: American columbine. A Midwest native already present in a few spots when I began working as the gardener in 2014, but their numbers and coverage of the garden has dramatically expanded, doing especially well in areas with partial or mid-afternoon shade.
• Artemisia annua: sweet Annie, also known as sweet wormwood. This is a plant I’ve been growing in my home garden for over 30 years, a prolific self-seeder with an incomparable fragrance; it now “grows wild” along the gravel walkway leading to the SW garden gate.
• Asclepias syriaca: common milkweed (a Google search turned up another common name that I find quite appealing: “silky swallow-wort”). The first A. syriaca I spotted was two years ago, poking up through the peony leaves in the “M1" bed; this year, these perennial milkweed have emerged in three more flower beds; although in the garden we have two other milkweed (A. incarnata, swamp milkweed, and A. tuberosa, butterfly weed), all the Monarch caterpillars I have found the past two years have all been munching on the silky swallow-wort (at the end of this report, you can check out an Alumni House Garden photo taken on the morning of July 16).
• Baptisia australia: false indigo. Of the 15 flower beds in the garden, the “M1" bed immediately west of the patio has undergone the fewest changes in the past 5 years; while several flowers have been added to the front of the border (two red rose bushes, several ornamental alliums, several phlox, several bloody cranesbill, a shasta daisy), the middle of the border (primarily peonies) and the back of the border (primarily false indigo) are basically unchanged; the false indigo are prolific self-seeders, producing many baby baptisia each spring, most of which are hoed up before they develop their deep tap roots; we’ve given away dozens of young baptisia, and there are always more for anyone who wants a tough, drought-tolerant Midwest native that is unfazed by Iowa’s winters and attractive in all seasons of the year.
• Cerastium tomentosum: snow-in-summer. Several clumps of C. tomentosum were planted two years ago in the two raised “J” beds on the north side of the garden; this spring, while removing weeds from the gravel walkway below the raised beds, I discovered several small snow-in-summer; since I didn’t want them in the walkway, I dug them up and transplanted them into a flower bed created around the new sundial in front of the gazebo; they all survived and even managed to produce a few blooms; although reputed to be a short-lived perennial, they can survive even Z2 winters.
• Chasmanthium latifolium (previously known as Uniola latifolia): various common names, including Indian woodoats, inland sea oats, northern sea oats. I introduced this Midwest native grass into the rain garden three years ago; I love the light green foliage and the arrowhead-shaped seed heads that turn purplish-bronze in the fall, one of the garden’s most distinctive attractions in the winter months; but this grass is a determined re-seeder, and we will have to work hard to keep it restrained within its assigned oval plot in the rain garden.
• Cleome hasslerana: spider plant, grandfather’s whiskers. I started several from seed and planted them in the “A1" bed in the spring of 2016; since then they have successfully self-seeded in the A1 and M2 beds–but nowhere else; last summer I transplanted several to the front of the “C” and “H” beds–where they bloomed and produced seeds but failed to produce any progeny this spring; they love the crevice and rock gardens, and though they are really too tall to blend well with the other plants in those miniature landscapes, I’ve allowed them to dominate one corner of the crevice garden because of their unique flowers–which bloom from July to September–and because they were one of Thomas Jefferson’s favorite flowers at Monticello.
• Coreopsis tinctoria: plains coreopsis, golden tickseed. Although there are at least five different varieties of coreopsis in the garden, the ones that have acquired my deepest appreciation are two perennials (Moonbeam and Zagreb) and the annual plains coreopsis; according to the USDA, the plains coreopsis is a flower native to every state in the lower 48 with the sole exceptions of Nevada and Utah; I first planted some seed in one of the raised “E” beds in 2016; before that summer was over I was finding baby coreopsis emerging in the gravel all around that bed, and now they are popping up all over the garden; although the annual coreopsis eventually get top heavy with spent flower heads and need to be cut back, they produce hundreds of bright, smiling burgundy and yellow blossoms, impossible not to love.
• Daucus carota: wild carrot, bird’s nest, Queen Anne’s lace. One of the dominant flowers at the east end of the garden four years ago; although Queen Anne’s lace is a remarkably attractive plant in many respects, every year I have made an effort to reduce its presence, and there is no longer any area with a sizable patch of these white flowers; I have, however, allowed a few to pop up in isolated spots, typically toward the back of a border, providing 2-3 flower heads to emerge among foliage of plants (such as peonies or asters) not currently in bloom.
• Echinacea purpurea: purple coneflower. On this morning’s garden walk there were purple coneflowers blooming in every bed, nearly all the product of self-seeding; a flower that approaches perfection for this kind of garden--Midwest native, drought-resistant, requiring virtually no care (other than occasional dead heading), favorite of many pollinators, favorite source of seeds for the goldfinches that will soon be nesting in or near the garden.
• Erigeron annuus: annual fleabane. Although easily classified as a weed, a single plant of this Midwest native member of the aster family can produce dozens of tiny white daisy-like blossoms that last for weeks; although I pull up most of the volunteers, I leave one or two per bed–a tough, friendly, unassuming bouquet to brighten a corner or provide a companion with other, fancier cultivars; at my vegetable garden near Wickiup Hill Learning Center there is a broad swath of fleabane running along my garden fence, providing an attractive white backdrop to the vegetables’ green foliage inside the fence.
• Euphorbia palustris: spurge. In the garden we have two quite dissimilar plants that are both labeled spurges: Chamaesyce maculata (common name: prostrate surge), a resilient annual weed that frequently appears in the gravel walkway and currently covers a sizable portion of the southeast quarter of the lawn, and Euphorbia palustris, which has been steadily expanding its turf in the “C” bed and has become a significant mid-border plant in May with its distinctive greenish-yellow bracts (the flowers are an inconspicuous green); even when the spring “flowers” have disappeared, the spurge still has an attractive foliage--though they often become topheavy and need to be severely pruned.
• Eutrochium maculatum (previously known as Eupatorium maculatum): spotted Joe-Pye Weed. I suspect the majority of Joe Pye weeds in the garden are the “spotted” variety, but we have at least one Joe Pye that is probably an Eutrochium fistulosum (hollow-stemmed Joe-Pye Weed); regardless of the species, the substantial increase in the garden’s Joe Pye weeds in the last four years has occurred through self-propagation (three exceptions are two transplants located on either side of the NW gate and a dwarf cultivar planted in front of the pergola); alas, the majority of young Joes have been pulled up and consigned to the compost pile because they often select locations inappropriate for a 6' tall plant (such as the rock and crevice gardens, an area they find particularly appealing).
Next week I will continue with the rest of my alphabetical list of self-propagaters. ~Bob
This morning, while doing some weeding, I was struck by the many plants in the garden who decided where they want to be located. No human chose the planting site. They planted themselves. Although since 2014 I have brought into the garden over 200 new flowers, shrubs, and grasses–plants chosen to fill a specific role in a specific location--the garden continues to be dominated by those plants that assume responsibility for distributing themselves, ignoring my plans and predispositions. Every year flowers appear in new locations, and they expect me to sanction their choice of neighbors. After I concluded this morning’s weeding efforts, I did a leisurely garden walk and jotted down the names of 35 flowers that have demonstrated a mind of their own, choosing when and where they want to appear. Below is an alphabetical list of 15 of those plants (ones from the “A-E” portion of the alphabet). In my next Monday Morning report, I will comment on the rest of the alphabet.
• Aquilegia canadensis: American columbine. A Midwest native already present in a few spots when I began working as the gardener in 2014, but their numbers and coverage of the garden has dramatically expanded, doing especially well in areas with partial or mid-afternoon shade.
• Artemisia annua: sweet Annie, also known as sweet wormwood. This is a plant I’ve been growing in my home garden for over 30 years, a prolific self-seeder with an incomparable fragrance; it now “grows wild” along the gravel walkway leading to the SW garden gate.
• Asclepias syriaca: common milkweed (a Google search turned up another common name that I find quite appealing: “silky swallow-wort”). The first A. syriaca I spotted was two years ago, poking up through the peony leaves in the “M1" bed; this year, these perennial milkweed have emerged in three more flower beds; although in the garden we have two other milkweed (A. incarnata, swamp milkweed, and A. tuberosa, butterfly weed), all the Monarch caterpillars I have found the past two years have all been munching on the silky swallow-wort (at the end of this report, you can check out an Alumni House Garden photo taken on the morning of July 16).
• Baptisia australia: false indigo. Of the 15 flower beds in the garden, the “M1" bed immediately west of the patio has undergone the fewest changes in the past 5 years; while several flowers have been added to the front of the border (two red rose bushes, several ornamental alliums, several phlox, several bloody cranesbill, a shasta daisy), the middle of the border (primarily peonies) and the back of the border (primarily false indigo) are basically unchanged; the false indigo are prolific self-seeders, producing many baby baptisia each spring, most of which are hoed up before they develop their deep tap roots; we’ve given away dozens of young baptisia, and there are always more for anyone who wants a tough, drought-tolerant Midwest native that is unfazed by Iowa’s winters and attractive in all seasons of the year.
• Cerastium tomentosum: snow-in-summer. Several clumps of C. tomentosum were planted two years ago in the two raised “J” beds on the north side of the garden; this spring, while removing weeds from the gravel walkway below the raised beds, I discovered several small snow-in-summer; since I didn’t want them in the walkway, I dug them up and transplanted them into a flower bed created around the new sundial in front of the gazebo; they all survived and even managed to produce a few blooms; although reputed to be a short-lived perennial, they can survive even Z2 winters.
• Chasmanthium latifolium (previously known as Uniola latifolia): various common names, including Indian woodoats, inland sea oats, northern sea oats. I introduced this Midwest native grass into the rain garden three years ago; I love the light green foliage and the arrowhead-shaped seed heads that turn purplish-bronze in the fall, one of the garden’s most distinctive attractions in the winter months; but this grass is a determined re-seeder, and we will have to work hard to keep it restrained within its assigned oval plot in the rain garden.
• Cleome hasslerana: spider plant, grandfather’s whiskers. I started several from seed and planted them in the “A1" bed in the spring of 2016; since then they have successfully self-seeded in the A1 and M2 beds–but nowhere else; last summer I transplanted several to the front of the “C” and “H” beds–where they bloomed and produced seeds but failed to produce any progeny this spring; they love the crevice and rock gardens, and though they are really too tall to blend well with the other plants in those miniature landscapes, I’ve allowed them to dominate one corner of the crevice garden because of their unique flowers–which bloom from July to September–and because they were one of Thomas Jefferson’s favorite flowers at Monticello.
• Coreopsis tinctoria: plains coreopsis, golden tickseed. Although there are at least five different varieties of coreopsis in the garden, the ones that have acquired my deepest appreciation are two perennials (Moonbeam and Zagreb) and the annual plains coreopsis; according to the USDA, the plains coreopsis is a flower native to every state in the lower 48 with the sole exceptions of Nevada and Utah; I first planted some seed in one of the raised “E” beds in 2016; before that summer was over I was finding baby coreopsis emerging in the gravel all around that bed, and now they are popping up all over the garden; although the annual coreopsis eventually get top heavy with spent flower heads and need to be cut back, they produce hundreds of bright, smiling burgundy and yellow blossoms, impossible not to love.
• Daucus carota: wild carrot, bird’s nest, Queen Anne’s lace. One of the dominant flowers at the east end of the garden four years ago; although Queen Anne’s lace is a remarkably attractive plant in many respects, every year I have made an effort to reduce its presence, and there is no longer any area with a sizable patch of these white flowers; I have, however, allowed a few to pop up in isolated spots, typically toward the back of a border, providing 2-3 flower heads to emerge among foliage of plants (such as peonies or asters) not currently in bloom.
• Echinacea purpurea: purple coneflower. On this morning’s garden walk there were purple coneflowers blooming in every bed, nearly all the product of self-seeding; a flower that approaches perfection for this kind of garden--Midwest native, drought-resistant, requiring virtually no care (other than occasional dead heading), favorite of many pollinators, favorite source of seeds for the goldfinches that will soon be nesting in or near the garden.
• Erigeron annuus: annual fleabane. Although easily classified as a weed, a single plant of this Midwest native member of the aster family can produce dozens of tiny white daisy-like blossoms that last for weeks; although I pull up most of the volunteers, I leave one or two per bed–a tough, friendly, unassuming bouquet to brighten a corner or provide a companion with other, fancier cultivars; at my vegetable garden near Wickiup Hill Learning Center there is a broad swath of fleabane running along my garden fence, providing an attractive white backdrop to the vegetables’ green foliage inside the fence.
• Euphorbia palustris: spurge. In the garden we have two quite dissimilar plants that are both labeled spurges: Chamaesyce maculata (common name: prostrate surge), a resilient annual weed that frequently appears in the gravel walkway and currently covers a sizable portion of the southeast quarter of the lawn, and Euphorbia palustris, which has been steadily expanding its turf in the “C” bed and has become a significant mid-border plant in May with its distinctive greenish-yellow bracts (the flowers are an inconspicuous green); even when the spring “flowers” have disappeared, the spurge still has an attractive foliage--though they often become topheavy and need to be severely pruned.
• Eutrochium maculatum (previously known as Eupatorium maculatum): spotted Joe-Pye Weed. I suspect the majority of Joe Pye weeds in the garden are the “spotted” variety, but we have at least one Joe Pye that is probably an Eutrochium fistulosum (hollow-stemmed Joe-Pye Weed); regardless of the species, the substantial increase in the garden’s Joe Pye weeds in the last four years has occurred through self-propagation (three exceptions are two transplants located on either side of the NW gate and a dwarf cultivar planted in front of the pergola); alas, the majority of young Joes have been pulled up and consigned to the compost pile because they often select locations inappropriate for a 6' tall plant (such as the rock and crevice gardens, an area they find particularly appealing).
Next week I will continue with the rest of my alphabetical list of self-propagaters. ~Bob
Monday Morning Garden Report: 9 July 2018
3:15 pm; 94F in the garden, 92F in the garden shed. Normally I jot down my garden reports while walking around the garden, but today I’m sitting on the SW bench in the shade, drinking what Lipton claims is “Iced Peach Tea” (though no peach product appears on their list of ingredients), yearning for an occasional breeze while looking around the garden, aiming for twenty observations.
• It’s dry; I spent 30 minutes this morning watering plants but too late for several individuals, including two recent transplants—a gazania and a clary sage.
• The astilbe in the rain garden look good, several with prominent pink flower spikes on display, but the small patch of astilbe next to my bench are smaller, with a haggard appearance; I planted them here so they would not receive much direct summer sun/heat, but they need richer soil and more regular watering.
•This morning I cleared the stone path through the “C” bed, a useful shortcut for getting into the garden quad; most of the clearing operation was cutting back hostas, spurge, and goatsbeard, but there were some “weeds”, including several velvetleaf.
Addendum on velvetleaf (Abutilon theophrasti, also known as Indian mallow, butter print, Indian hemp, cottonweed, buttonweed, piemaker, and elephant ear): this plant is a native to India, introduced into the U.S. in the 18th century as a possible fiber crop; velvetleaf grew along the west side of our barn on the farm, and I was attracted to the large, soft leaves–which indeed feel like velvet; a frequent invader in my vegetable garden, I have allowed one large A. theophrasti to grow by a compost bin and will wait until it’s finished blooming before cutting it down.
• Although I can’t see them, I know there are some Japanese beetles on the basil in the herb garden; until yesterday they had chosen other vegetation for their munching and fornication, but today the basil has attracted a steady stream of visitors (perhaps because the basil’s emerging blossoms are emitting a chemical that inspires the beetles’ aphrodisiac fantasies?).
• From my bench I can see 7-8 large black wasps feverishly going over the new blue flower spikes of the obedient plants.
• From here I can see purple coneflowers in nearly every bed, one of the species providing the garden with a semblance of coherence. Except for a couple of intentionally planted coneflower cultivars, the coneflowers have assumed a primary responsibility for determining where they want to congregate.
• All the spiderwort need to be cut back; once they are done blooming, their spent flower heads are rather ugly and ungainly, detracting from some of their more attractive neighbors—such as the daylilies now in full bloom.
• Several Joe Pye are drooping in this mid-afternoon heat; they have deep roots and will bounce back, but I’m still disheartened to see them struggle with this unrelenting heat.
• The daylilies are at their peak flowering cycle; perhaps 2-3 varieties that have not yet begun to bloom.
• In a previous morning report I had commented on a desire to move the Johnson’s Blue cranesbill in the “D” bed, currently caught in a vice between an expansive daylily and a tougher and more compact bloody cranesbill; the Johnson’s Blue stopped blooming several weeks ago, but I just noticed that it has a new set of fresh, green leaves emerging; I really need to find it a new home.
• The lawn needs mowing but since I’m soon going to cover it all up, in preparation for re-seeding, I don’t feel much motivation for such an effort.
• I never did plant any zinnias as front-of-border flowers in the “G” and “H” beds; instead I will plant eight white coneflowers I bought last week at Home Depot.
I moved to the SE bench: still in shade, still drinking fake peach tea, still waiting for an occasional breeze. Back to my 20 observations:
• I passed by the Rozanne cranesbill while changing benches; several dozen light blue blooms and hovering over a tight, tidy form; an ideal front-of-border plant.
• The large patch of purple-leafed loosestrife (Lysimachia ciliata ‘Purpurea’--at least that’s my best guess) next to the SE bench are now blooming with their tidy, 5-petal, yellow blossoms—typically 2 blossoms per stem, typically facing down; I frequently see the black wasps on the L. clethroides (the gooseneck loosestrife) with is curved racemes of small white flowers, but I don’t recall ever seeing the black wasps—or any other pollinators--on the gooseneck’s cousin.
• A month ago I pulled up most of the horsetail at the front of the “G” border; as expected, the horsetail have re-emerged, which means that later this week I will repeat the effort, hoping that on occasion I extract enough of the horsetail’s roots to delay its reappearance.
• Several clumps of shasta daisies are now blooming in the “F” bed, and another job this week is to remove the spent blossom heads—helping the daisies look a bit tidier, perhaps expanding their bloom period or inspiring a second bloom cycle later this summer; I also need to deadhead several penstemon patches.
• The hydrangea shrub behind me has just begun to bloom, the white blossoms a welcome attraction in this shady area with the backdrop of the dark green yews; I made a mistake in laying out the wood chip path too close to the hydrangea, but I fear this shrub would not survive being moved a couple feet west of its present location.
• The dark burgundy foliage of the two hibiscus plants in the “G” and “H” beds are now in full display; earlier today I noticed the emergence of a flower bud, indicating the hibiscus in the “H” bed—which receives more morning light—will soon be blooming; they are certainly the most dramatic, tropical-like plants in the entire garden.
• Another observation on the Joe Pye Weeds: their lovely purple/pink flower heads are just beginning to open up; a new volunteer Joe Pye appeared last year on the right side of the bench, and perhaps in a few years it will balance the huge Joe Pye clump on the left side—a clump which has vigorously expanded in the last two years.
• The Verbena bonariensis are now rising above other vegetation, and a few will soon be blooming; unfortunately, the garden is also home to a weed that in its early weeks appears—at least to my eyes—quite similar to the verbena; so I bide my time, waiting for confirmation of identities.
By my count, I’ve reached my goal of 20 observations. It’s time to finish my tea and pull some weeds.
3:15 pm; 94F in the garden, 92F in the garden shed. Normally I jot down my garden reports while walking around the garden, but today I’m sitting on the SW bench in the shade, drinking what Lipton claims is “Iced Peach Tea” (though no peach product appears on their list of ingredients), yearning for an occasional breeze while looking around the garden, aiming for twenty observations.
• It’s dry; I spent 30 minutes this morning watering plants but too late for several individuals, including two recent transplants—a gazania and a clary sage.
• The astilbe in the rain garden look good, several with prominent pink flower spikes on display, but the small patch of astilbe next to my bench are smaller, with a haggard appearance; I planted them here so they would not receive much direct summer sun/heat, but they need richer soil and more regular watering.
•This morning I cleared the stone path through the “C” bed, a useful shortcut for getting into the garden quad; most of the clearing operation was cutting back hostas, spurge, and goatsbeard, but there were some “weeds”, including several velvetleaf.
Addendum on velvetleaf (Abutilon theophrasti, also known as Indian mallow, butter print, Indian hemp, cottonweed, buttonweed, piemaker, and elephant ear): this plant is a native to India, introduced into the U.S. in the 18th century as a possible fiber crop; velvetleaf grew along the west side of our barn on the farm, and I was attracted to the large, soft leaves–which indeed feel like velvet; a frequent invader in my vegetable garden, I have allowed one large A. theophrasti to grow by a compost bin and will wait until it’s finished blooming before cutting it down.
• Although I can’t see them, I know there are some Japanese beetles on the basil in the herb garden; until yesterday they had chosen other vegetation for their munching and fornication, but today the basil has attracted a steady stream of visitors (perhaps because the basil’s emerging blossoms are emitting a chemical that inspires the beetles’ aphrodisiac fantasies?).
• From my bench I can see 7-8 large black wasps feverishly going over the new blue flower spikes of the obedient plants.
• From here I can see purple coneflowers in nearly every bed, one of the species providing the garden with a semblance of coherence. Except for a couple of intentionally planted coneflower cultivars, the coneflowers have assumed a primary responsibility for determining where they want to congregate.
• All the spiderwort need to be cut back; once they are done blooming, their spent flower heads are rather ugly and ungainly, detracting from some of their more attractive neighbors—such as the daylilies now in full bloom.
• Several Joe Pye are drooping in this mid-afternoon heat; they have deep roots and will bounce back, but I’m still disheartened to see them struggle with this unrelenting heat.
• The daylilies are at their peak flowering cycle; perhaps 2-3 varieties that have not yet begun to bloom.
• In a previous morning report I had commented on a desire to move the Johnson’s Blue cranesbill in the “D” bed, currently caught in a vice between an expansive daylily and a tougher and more compact bloody cranesbill; the Johnson’s Blue stopped blooming several weeks ago, but I just noticed that it has a new set of fresh, green leaves emerging; I really need to find it a new home.
• The lawn needs mowing but since I’m soon going to cover it all up, in preparation for re-seeding, I don’t feel much motivation for such an effort.
• I never did plant any zinnias as front-of-border flowers in the “G” and “H” beds; instead I will plant eight white coneflowers I bought last week at Home Depot.
I moved to the SE bench: still in shade, still drinking fake peach tea, still waiting for an occasional breeze. Back to my 20 observations:
• I passed by the Rozanne cranesbill while changing benches; several dozen light blue blooms and hovering over a tight, tidy form; an ideal front-of-border plant.
• The large patch of purple-leafed loosestrife (Lysimachia ciliata ‘Purpurea’--at least that’s my best guess) next to the SE bench are now blooming with their tidy, 5-petal, yellow blossoms—typically 2 blossoms per stem, typically facing down; I frequently see the black wasps on the L. clethroides (the gooseneck loosestrife) with is curved racemes of small white flowers, but I don’t recall ever seeing the black wasps—or any other pollinators--on the gooseneck’s cousin.
• A month ago I pulled up most of the horsetail at the front of the “G” border; as expected, the horsetail have re-emerged, which means that later this week I will repeat the effort, hoping that on occasion I extract enough of the horsetail’s roots to delay its reappearance.
• Several clumps of shasta daisies are now blooming in the “F” bed, and another job this week is to remove the spent blossom heads—helping the daisies look a bit tidier, perhaps expanding their bloom period or inspiring a second bloom cycle later this summer; I also need to deadhead several penstemon patches.
• The hydrangea shrub behind me has just begun to bloom, the white blossoms a welcome attraction in this shady area with the backdrop of the dark green yews; I made a mistake in laying out the wood chip path too close to the hydrangea, but I fear this shrub would not survive being moved a couple feet west of its present location.
• The dark burgundy foliage of the two hibiscus plants in the “G” and “H” beds are now in full display; earlier today I noticed the emergence of a flower bud, indicating the hibiscus in the “H” bed—which receives more morning light—will soon be blooming; they are certainly the most dramatic, tropical-like plants in the entire garden.
• Another observation on the Joe Pye Weeds: their lovely purple/pink flower heads are just beginning to open up; a new volunteer Joe Pye appeared last year on the right side of the bench, and perhaps in a few years it will balance the huge Joe Pye clump on the left side—a clump which has vigorously expanded in the last two years.
• The Verbena bonariensis are now rising above other vegetation, and a few will soon be blooming; unfortunately, the garden is also home to a weed that in its early weeks appears—at least to my eyes—quite similar to the verbena; so I bide my time, waiting for confirmation of identities.
By my count, I’ve reached my goal of 20 observations. It’s time to finish my tea and pull some weeds.
Monday Morning Garden Report: 2 July 2018
When in the spring of 2014 I became responsible for maintaining the Alumni House Garden, one immediate challenge was determining what to do with the two large flower beds immediately in front of the terrace. During that first season, I discovered those two beds were dominated by Stella D’Oro daylilies, New England asters, and rose bushes with pink, fragrantless blooms lasting only one or two days. I suspected the roses were the remnants of root stock used for grafting less hardy varieties. At some point, the rose scion had died–most likely from a cold winter–and only the tough root stock remained. As for the asters, they had freely self-seeded across all beds in the garden. I like New England asters, and pockets of them can still be found throughout the garden, but they can be aggressive bullies and their blossoms don’t appear until the early fall.
After some hesitation, I decided to remove most of the roses and asters and introduce daylilies as the dominant flower for those beds. I was attracted to daylilies because of their minimal care requirements, the beauty of their flowers, the variety of bloom colors and shapes, the length of their bloom periods, their winter hardiness, their ability to deal with hot and dry summer weather, the attractiveness of their foliage, and the effectiveness of that foliage in hiding the expiring foliage of spring time bulbs–such as daffodils and tulips. In 2015 and 2016 we planted 40 different varieties of daylilies throughout the garden, including over 30 new varieties in the two flower beds in front of the Alumni House terrace. Listed below in alphabetical order are 37 daylilies in the garden. Asterisks identify the daylilies that I think were blooming this morning. In some instances, I’ve added parenthetical information to help me identify particular daylilies.
• Artist Etching
• Baja* [Tetrapoid daylily with blood-red, velvet-like petals that peel back, yellow-green throat; fragrant; numerous awards.]
• Barbara Mitchell* [An elegant diploid with soft pink petals and yellow throat; large, ruffled blooms; a Stout Medal winner, the field’s highest honor.]
• Black-Eyed Stella* [Early front-or-border bloomer, with 3" light gold bloom and dark orange/red eyezone; may continue blooming through summer.]
• Blushing Summer Valentine
• Bonanza*
• Calling You
• Catherine Woodbury* [Classic daylily; fragrant 4-5" lavender-pink blooms with white midribs and yellow-green throat.]
• Country Melody*[A tetraploid with 5-6" pink, fragrant blooms, yellow throat, lemon-yellow edges, and light pink midrib; numerous awards.]
• Daring Dilemma* [Cream-tinted pink blooms with plum edge and plum eyezone above green throat; edges are slightly ruffled; Daring Dilemma is featured in the photo at the end of this garden report.]
• Double Classic* [Planted under pergola, close to the walkway because of its fragrance.]
• El Desperado* [One catalog describes the 5" blooms as “mustard yellow”; this tetraploid has a purple eyezone; eye is notched at the midrib, creating an interesting pattern; yellow-green throat; crimped flower petals; capable of a high bud count and extended bloom life; multiple award-winner; several are planted along walkway under pergola.]
• Frans Hals* [Large bi-colored blooms that alternate rusty-crimson inner petals with yellow outer petals; pronounced lemon midribs and wide yellow throats.]
• Hall’s Pink
• Happy Returns* [Vigorous, long, grass-like foliage; bright yellow flowers on tall stems; capable of reblooming through summer; similar characteristics to Stella D’oro but the blooms of Happy Returns are bright yellow and Stella’s are more golden.]
• Ida’s Magic
• Lemon Vista
• Lime Frost
• Lullaby Baby* [Short, front of border daylily; 3-4" blooms with pie crust ruffles on petal edges; frequent award winner.]
• Mary Reed* [Small, front-of-border daylily; raspberry petals with green throat.]
• Moonsong
• Pandora’s Box* [Creamy petals with deep purple eyezone and small golden-green throat; fragant.]
• Pardon Me* [Long-blooming, 2-3" garnet red blooms; fragrant.]
• Prairie Bell
• Purple D’Oro*
• Real Wind
• River Wye* [Golden-yellow double bloom; in the “A2" bed]
• Ruffled Apricot* [Just like the name suggests: light apricot petals with ruffled edges; lavender-pink midribs; fragrant; winner of the Stout Medal.]
• Russian Ragtime
• Show Girl* [Ruffled red petals with a deeper red center and a green throat; a diploid with extended bloom season.]
• Siloam Junebug* [2-3" golden yellow blooms with small but distinct maroon/burgundy eyezone; should re-bloom.]
• Stella Bella* [Offspring of Stella D’Oro; small, front-of-border; golden yellow blooms, long bloom season.]
• Stella D’Oro*[Even after removing over half of the Stellas, they are still the most common daylily in the garden: they are the first to bloom and bloom for a long time, certainly deserving their reputation.]
• Strawberry Candy*
• Strutters Ball*[At one time this award-winning tetraploid was very expensive but now quite reasonable; 6" cranberry-purple petals with lemon throat.]
• Wayside Red Ensign
• Wonderful Wonderful
• Zagora
In addition to those listed, we have a marvelous but not yet identified daylily with large yellow blooms in the “D” bed. It was divided and replanted last year and has emerged as one of our July stars. We also have a line of five varieties of daylilies that I planted two years ago, but I failed–alas--to label them correctly, and I’m still trying to figure out who/what they are. Four of them are now producing wonderful blossoms, but I don’t know any of their names. One of my goals for this year is to create a reasonably accurate map of the garden’s daylilies to help improve my skill in recognizing each of the daylily varieties–as well as providing a helpful guide for visitors to the garden.
Of course, the daylilies were not the only game in town. Other flowers of note included the following:
• Crocosima: the first red flower of the Lucifer crocosima opened in the past 24 hours; many more are on their way. Behind them is a nice display of orange flowers on the Asclepias tuberosa (butterfly weed).
• Balloon Flowers: Platicodon grandiflorus, the only species in this genus; the genus name translates “broad bell.” These were present in the garden in 2014, but they have developed several impressive clumps, most notably a swath of blue blooms in the “K” bed. If I can keep them dead-headed, they should continue blooming throughout the summer. This is one flower that many visitors ask about. The much shorter ‘Astra Pink’ cultivar was planted in the front of the “L” bed in 2015; they have also begun to bloom, producing a lovely light pink flower.
• Coreopsis: Both the annuals and perennial coreopsis are blooming; I’ve allowed the annuals to self-seed in the two dahlia beds, providing us with dozens of small, yellow-maroon flowers swaying in the breeze while waiting for the dahlia flowers to arrive on the scene in a few weeks.
And, finally, my morning report would not be complete without commenting on the Japanese Beetles. They first appeared about June 20, which means that one of my first tasks each morning is collecting beetles in an old yogurt container with a mix of fountain water and dish soap. This morning I harvested about 200 of the critters. What has surprised me this year is that many are gathering on the lower limbs of the flowering crab trees. In previous years the scab had defoliated the flowering crab–thus no leaves for the Japanese beetles to munch on–but this year the flowering crab have few signs of damage from the fungus and are thus providing ample fodder for the beetles.
When in the spring of 2014 I became responsible for maintaining the Alumni House Garden, one immediate challenge was determining what to do with the two large flower beds immediately in front of the terrace. During that first season, I discovered those two beds were dominated by Stella D’Oro daylilies, New England asters, and rose bushes with pink, fragrantless blooms lasting only one or two days. I suspected the roses were the remnants of root stock used for grafting less hardy varieties. At some point, the rose scion had died–most likely from a cold winter–and only the tough root stock remained. As for the asters, they had freely self-seeded across all beds in the garden. I like New England asters, and pockets of them can still be found throughout the garden, but they can be aggressive bullies and their blossoms don’t appear until the early fall.
After some hesitation, I decided to remove most of the roses and asters and introduce daylilies as the dominant flower for those beds. I was attracted to daylilies because of their minimal care requirements, the beauty of their flowers, the variety of bloom colors and shapes, the length of their bloom periods, their winter hardiness, their ability to deal with hot and dry summer weather, the attractiveness of their foliage, and the effectiveness of that foliage in hiding the expiring foliage of spring time bulbs–such as daffodils and tulips. In 2015 and 2016 we planted 40 different varieties of daylilies throughout the garden, including over 30 new varieties in the two flower beds in front of the Alumni House terrace. Listed below in alphabetical order are 37 daylilies in the garden. Asterisks identify the daylilies that I think were blooming this morning. In some instances, I’ve added parenthetical information to help me identify particular daylilies.
• Artist Etching
• Baja* [Tetrapoid daylily with blood-red, velvet-like petals that peel back, yellow-green throat; fragrant; numerous awards.]
• Barbara Mitchell* [An elegant diploid with soft pink petals and yellow throat; large, ruffled blooms; a Stout Medal winner, the field’s highest honor.]
• Black-Eyed Stella* [Early front-or-border bloomer, with 3" light gold bloom and dark orange/red eyezone; may continue blooming through summer.]
• Blushing Summer Valentine
• Bonanza*
• Calling You
• Catherine Woodbury* [Classic daylily; fragrant 4-5" lavender-pink blooms with white midribs and yellow-green throat.]
• Country Melody*[A tetraploid with 5-6" pink, fragrant blooms, yellow throat, lemon-yellow edges, and light pink midrib; numerous awards.]
• Daring Dilemma* [Cream-tinted pink blooms with plum edge and plum eyezone above green throat; edges are slightly ruffled; Daring Dilemma is featured in the photo at the end of this garden report.]
• Double Classic* [Planted under pergola, close to the walkway because of its fragrance.]
• El Desperado* [One catalog describes the 5" blooms as “mustard yellow”; this tetraploid has a purple eyezone; eye is notched at the midrib, creating an interesting pattern; yellow-green throat; crimped flower petals; capable of a high bud count and extended bloom life; multiple award-winner; several are planted along walkway under pergola.]
• Frans Hals* [Large bi-colored blooms that alternate rusty-crimson inner petals with yellow outer petals; pronounced lemon midribs and wide yellow throats.]
• Hall’s Pink
• Happy Returns* [Vigorous, long, grass-like foliage; bright yellow flowers on tall stems; capable of reblooming through summer; similar characteristics to Stella D’oro but the blooms of Happy Returns are bright yellow and Stella’s are more golden.]
• Ida’s Magic
• Lemon Vista
• Lime Frost
• Lullaby Baby* [Short, front of border daylily; 3-4" blooms with pie crust ruffles on petal edges; frequent award winner.]
• Mary Reed* [Small, front-of-border daylily; raspberry petals with green throat.]
• Moonsong
• Pandora’s Box* [Creamy petals with deep purple eyezone and small golden-green throat; fragant.]
• Pardon Me* [Long-blooming, 2-3" garnet red blooms; fragrant.]
• Prairie Bell
• Purple D’Oro*
• Real Wind
• River Wye* [Golden-yellow double bloom; in the “A2" bed]
• Ruffled Apricot* [Just like the name suggests: light apricot petals with ruffled edges; lavender-pink midribs; fragrant; winner of the Stout Medal.]
• Russian Ragtime
• Show Girl* [Ruffled red petals with a deeper red center and a green throat; a diploid with extended bloom season.]
• Siloam Junebug* [2-3" golden yellow blooms with small but distinct maroon/burgundy eyezone; should re-bloom.]
• Stella Bella* [Offspring of Stella D’Oro; small, front-of-border; golden yellow blooms, long bloom season.]
• Stella D’Oro*[Even after removing over half of the Stellas, they are still the most common daylily in the garden: they are the first to bloom and bloom for a long time, certainly deserving their reputation.]
• Strawberry Candy*
• Strutters Ball*[At one time this award-winning tetraploid was very expensive but now quite reasonable; 6" cranberry-purple petals with lemon throat.]
• Wayside Red Ensign
• Wonderful Wonderful
• Zagora
In addition to those listed, we have a marvelous but not yet identified daylily with large yellow blooms in the “D” bed. It was divided and replanted last year and has emerged as one of our July stars. We also have a line of five varieties of daylilies that I planted two years ago, but I failed–alas--to label them correctly, and I’m still trying to figure out who/what they are. Four of them are now producing wonderful blossoms, but I don’t know any of their names. One of my goals for this year is to create a reasonably accurate map of the garden’s daylilies to help improve my skill in recognizing each of the daylily varieties–as well as providing a helpful guide for visitors to the garden.
Of course, the daylilies were not the only game in town. Other flowers of note included the following:
• Crocosima: the first red flower of the Lucifer crocosima opened in the past 24 hours; many more are on their way. Behind them is a nice display of orange flowers on the Asclepias tuberosa (butterfly weed).
• Balloon Flowers: Platicodon grandiflorus, the only species in this genus; the genus name translates “broad bell.” These were present in the garden in 2014, but they have developed several impressive clumps, most notably a swath of blue blooms in the “K” bed. If I can keep them dead-headed, they should continue blooming throughout the summer. This is one flower that many visitors ask about. The much shorter ‘Astra Pink’ cultivar was planted in the front of the “L” bed in 2015; they have also begun to bloom, producing a lovely light pink flower.
• Coreopsis: Both the annuals and perennial coreopsis are blooming; I’ve allowed the annuals to self-seed in the two dahlia beds, providing us with dozens of small, yellow-maroon flowers swaying in the breeze while waiting for the dahlia flowers to arrive on the scene in a few weeks.
And, finally, my morning report would not be complete without commenting on the Japanese Beetles. They first appeared about June 20, which means that one of my first tasks each morning is collecting beetles in an old yogurt container with a mix of fountain water and dish soap. This morning I harvested about 200 of the critters. What has surprised me this year is that many are gathering on the lower limbs of the flowering crab trees. In previous years the scab had defoliated the flowering crab–thus no leaves for the Japanese beetles to munch on–but this year the flowering crab have few signs of damage from the fungus and are thus providing ample fodder for the beetles.
Monday Morning Garden Report: 11 June 2018
In 1625, a year before his death, Francis Bacon published a third edition of his Essays. One of the new essays in this enlarged and freshly edited collection was “Of Gardens,” with an opening gambit providing perhaps the most oft quoted passage in all of garden literature: “God Almighty first planted a garden. And indeed it is the purest of human pleasures.” Bacon goes on to note that a garden offers “the greatest refreshment to the spirits of man, without which buildings and palaces are but gross handy-works.” On a daily basis, I am thankful those responsible for Coe’s Alumni House took to heart Bacon’s admonition.
In recent weeks, my thoughts have often turned to a less famous passage in Bacon’s essay where he talks about filling a garden with a variety of private “alleys,” allowing visitors to move throughout the garden, with provisions of “full shade. . . wheresoever the sun be.” Bacon advises that the alleys be surrounded by walls and hedges to keep out the wind, and--the passage sticking in my mind–these alleys “must be ever finely gravelled, and no grass, because of going wet.”
Visitors to the Alumni House Garden will recognize that the garden’s original walkways were intended to follow Bacon’s recommendation: each corner has a park bench in the shade of a flowering crab and the walkways are covered with white gravel, ensuring that one can walk throughout the garden, even on the wettest of days, without getting one’s feet wet. And the white gravel walkways do create a pleasant aesthetic, establishing a distinct border between the central rectangle of a grassy lawn and the flower beds around the perimeter.
When I submitted a proposal seeking appointment as an Alumni House gardener, I expressly indicated I only sought to care for the garden beds: I would leave to Coe’s grounds crew and physical plant personnel responsibilities for the fountain, green lawn, and white gravel walkways. Alas, what I soon discovered is that the walkways served as a perfect nursery bed for a multitude of persistent grasses, sedums, sedges, purslanes, spiderworts, coreopsis, artemisia, and other invaders–and that their insistent re-appearance often gave the impression the entire garden was unkempt. And so I became responsible for the walkways, ensuring that my life would be burdened with the Sisyphean tasks of hoeing and raking and hoeing and raking the gravel walkways. I knew that regardless of my efforts at thorough eradication, between the months of March and November, new progeny would always be emerging.
My usual strategy is to seek a friendly compromise with the walkways: content with a modest control but rarely attempting the futile goal of eliminating all weed-like traces. The past week, however, the garden was scheduled to be the scene for a wedding on Saturday, and I was determined to render the gravel walkways “weed free”--at least for a few hours.
When I entered the garden this morning, my first move was checking the rain gauge. After a long dry spell, it was a relief to discover we had received over 2.5" since Friday evening. That amount would ensure no garden hose watering would be necessary before the end of the month. Welcome news. Of course, the rain also guaranteed germination of hundreds of hidden seeds in the walkways. But for this one morning, most of the walkways looked freshly raked and weed free. Due to the thunderstorm, some gravel under the pergola had washed out onto the sidewalk beyond the garden walls, but overall I enjoyed a morning walking on white, weed-free gravel. Although I knew that by the end of the week, tiny sprigs of new growth would be nudging their way between the tiny rocks, at least for a few days, our gravel walkways might even satisfy Francis Bacon.
Of course, there is more to a garden than well-raked gravel. Here are observations on 16 plants that caught my attention this morning:
• Pearly Everlasting (Anaphalis margaritacea). In the midst of the wild strawberries from the Wilderness Field Station, I see several Pearly Everlasting leaves poking through the strawberry foliage. Although I think the species is dioecious, every year they pop up at a different location and it appears they are managing to self-seed. Their appearance reminds me of a Pearly Everlasting that was always at the edge of the path to my cabin at the Field Station.
• Elderberry. Both of the Elderberry at the SW gate are in full bloom with dozens of white, delicately fragrant flower heads–in what Liberty Hyde Bailey identifies as “compound terminal cymes.” The younger Elderberry, just four years old, has exploded in the past year, now over 15' tall, much larger than its parent. I suspect these Elderberry are a variety of Sambucus canadensis, but I would prefer to have that suspicion confirmed before attempting to do anything with the purple fruit (which has usually been quite popular with local birds).
• Asclepias. The milkweed’s orange blossoms are just beginning to open; below the Asclepias are a dozen stunning–though short-lived--yellow blooms of a Primrose.
• Spiderworts. Like the Primrose, each bloom only survives for a day, but the Spiderworts have a tight cluster of sequential blooms, ensuring their bloom cycle lasts longer. With the exception of one Spiderwort with yellow foliage planted along the Rain Garden, all the other Spiderworts in the garden are self-sown, popping up where ever they please. Most get pulled up or cut back after their blooms are spent, but they have no problem producing many new offspring in shade or full sun, in moist compost or a dry, compacted, gravel walkway.
• Yarrows. Both the yellow and red yarrows that greet visitors descending from the patio are in bloom. Last year the red yarrows in the “L” bed never caught up with the yellows, but this year they have done a better job of coordinating their bloom cycle.
• Johnson’s Blue Cranesbill. The two Johnson’s Blue Cranesbill in the “D” bed produce lovely light blue blooms, but the plants are already leggy and flopping over. They should be moved to the back of the border and replaced with the Rozanne Cranesbill, a geranium hybrid which has comparable blooms but a much tighter habit.
• Maltese Cross. My Hortus Third dictionary lists four common names for Lychnis chalcedonia: Maltese Cross, Jerusalem Cross, Scarlet Lightning, and London Pride; the Wikipedia entry lists 19 names–though the list does not include London Pride (a name used by New England gardeners in the 1800s). The Maltese Cross in both the “D” and “E” beds are now in full bloom, their distinctive red petals providing dramatic bits of color even when seen at a distance.
• Peacock Orchids (Gladiolus acidanthera). One task I started this morning was planting the Peacock Orchid corms; many of them–though stored in peat moss in a tightly covered black plastic bin--have already sent out pale, ghostly white stems, assiduously seeking sunlight. As I was planting the corms, I often left the tips of the white spears sticking above the soil. I trust the stems will quickly adopt their normal burgundy and green color pattern.
• Dahlias. The dahlia tubers were planted about three weeks ago in the “E” and “J” beds–the same beds used last year. All the Bishops of Llandaff’s are in the “E” bed, accompanied by several dahlia hybrids developed by Harlo Hadow’s father in Wisconsin.
• Coreopsis. Most of the coreopsis in the garden–all natives to North or Central America--are either C. verticillata (the “Moonbeam” and “Zagreb” perennials) or C. tinctoria (the plains tickseed, a vigorous self-seeding annual). The gravel walkway around the “E” bed produced hundreds of baby tickseeds. Most of them were killed by my hoe, but I dug up a few and transplanted them to make a thin coreopsis border around the bed of dahlias. I also left several dozen in the herb bed in front of the basil, chives, fennel, rosemary, lavender, pepper plants, and one tomato plant. Some of the coreopsis in the gravel walkway have already begun to bloom, bearing bright yellow petals with maroon centers. If I keep them deadheaded, they should continue blooming into the fall.
• Creeping Thyme. Thymus serpyllum ‘Pink Chintz’ has become one of my favorite plants: a dense mat of foliage–no more than 1" in height--already covered with tiny pink flowers, a favorite with many pollinators. The primary challenge is the wood sorrel, which loves to partner with the thyme. The sorrel has deep tap roots, making it difficult to dislodge without disturbing the thyme. The sorrel leaves are attractive and probably edible–appropriate for an herb garden–but I think it best to keep their aggressive spreading efforts in check.
• Ox-Eye Daisies and Becky Shasta Daisies. The Ox-Eyes are done, except for a few, random blossoms. They put on a great display under the pergola–plus a few miscellaneous clumps appearing throughout the garden–but it’s now time to deadhead them and trust their green foliage will provide a pleasant, unobtrusive background for the remainder of the year. The blooms of Becky’s Shasta Daisies are just beginning to open, most notably the two clumps at the west end of the “F” bed, separated by a lovely beardtongue with white blooms. In my sporadic efforts to turn the “F” bed into a “white flower” bed, this daisy/beardtongue combination remains one of my few points of success. Much more prominent is the 6' wide swath of sunflowers that have taken over the middle of the border.
• Dwarf Asiatic Lilies. These ‘Ivory Pixie’ and ‘Pink Pixie’ lilies were among the first flowers I planted in the garden, introduced in July of 2014. Shortly after they were finished blooming that first year, they were eaten to the ground (probably by rabbits), and I assumed that was the end of that experiment. But they bounced back the following spring and three (of four) clumps have continued to expand, producing a potent display of pink and ivory-cream blooms at the front of the “G” and “H” borders. They certainly help to draw attention away from the lingering daffodil foliage.
• Japanese Iris. These iris were donated for use in the Rain Garden in the summer of 2015 and for the first two years produced no blooms. Last year a few purple blooms appeared in June, the shape of the flowers confirming they were Japanese iris. This year we have our first full display, providing a welcome sequence to the May blooms of the Flag Iris and Siberian Iris. Most of the Japanese flower stems have 2-3 blooms, the flowers lasting much longer than blooms of the other iris.
• Hollyhocks. My efforts to establish a bed of Hollyhocks in the “A2" bed have failed–though the Mallows in that area have thrived--but Hollyhocks in the “I” bed have re-emerged, and it appears some pink blooms will be opening later this week–perhaps a few days before the Japanese beetles arrive on the scene. I have also discovered a Hollyhocks growing by the new compost bin under the flowering crab. I have no idea where that fellow came from, but it appears to be happy and has some emerging flower buds. There are also several Hollyhocks under the NW flowering crab. Last year the Hollyhocks in that area produced dark purple blooms that were almost black.
• Coneflowers. A few, randomly situated purple Coneflowers are just beginning to bloom. There are many baby Coneflowers sprinkled throughout the garden. This coming week I hope to dig up some of those Coneflowers, transplant them into peat pots, and see how well they develop in the greenhouse.
Below is a photo from May 10, well before any flowers on the rose bush, Siberian Iris, Dwarf Lilac, or Ox-Eye Daisies.
In 1625, a year before his death, Francis Bacon published a third edition of his Essays. One of the new essays in this enlarged and freshly edited collection was “Of Gardens,” with an opening gambit providing perhaps the most oft quoted passage in all of garden literature: “God Almighty first planted a garden. And indeed it is the purest of human pleasures.” Bacon goes on to note that a garden offers “the greatest refreshment to the spirits of man, without which buildings and palaces are but gross handy-works.” On a daily basis, I am thankful those responsible for Coe’s Alumni House took to heart Bacon’s admonition.
In recent weeks, my thoughts have often turned to a less famous passage in Bacon’s essay where he talks about filling a garden with a variety of private “alleys,” allowing visitors to move throughout the garden, with provisions of “full shade. . . wheresoever the sun be.” Bacon advises that the alleys be surrounded by walls and hedges to keep out the wind, and--the passage sticking in my mind–these alleys “must be ever finely gravelled, and no grass, because of going wet.”
Visitors to the Alumni House Garden will recognize that the garden’s original walkways were intended to follow Bacon’s recommendation: each corner has a park bench in the shade of a flowering crab and the walkways are covered with white gravel, ensuring that one can walk throughout the garden, even on the wettest of days, without getting one’s feet wet. And the white gravel walkways do create a pleasant aesthetic, establishing a distinct border between the central rectangle of a grassy lawn and the flower beds around the perimeter.
When I submitted a proposal seeking appointment as an Alumni House gardener, I expressly indicated I only sought to care for the garden beds: I would leave to Coe’s grounds crew and physical plant personnel responsibilities for the fountain, green lawn, and white gravel walkways. Alas, what I soon discovered is that the walkways served as a perfect nursery bed for a multitude of persistent grasses, sedums, sedges, purslanes, spiderworts, coreopsis, artemisia, and other invaders–and that their insistent re-appearance often gave the impression the entire garden was unkempt. And so I became responsible for the walkways, ensuring that my life would be burdened with the Sisyphean tasks of hoeing and raking and hoeing and raking the gravel walkways. I knew that regardless of my efforts at thorough eradication, between the months of March and November, new progeny would always be emerging.
My usual strategy is to seek a friendly compromise with the walkways: content with a modest control but rarely attempting the futile goal of eliminating all weed-like traces. The past week, however, the garden was scheduled to be the scene for a wedding on Saturday, and I was determined to render the gravel walkways “weed free”--at least for a few hours.
When I entered the garden this morning, my first move was checking the rain gauge. After a long dry spell, it was a relief to discover we had received over 2.5" since Friday evening. That amount would ensure no garden hose watering would be necessary before the end of the month. Welcome news. Of course, the rain also guaranteed germination of hundreds of hidden seeds in the walkways. But for this one morning, most of the walkways looked freshly raked and weed free. Due to the thunderstorm, some gravel under the pergola had washed out onto the sidewalk beyond the garden walls, but overall I enjoyed a morning walking on white, weed-free gravel. Although I knew that by the end of the week, tiny sprigs of new growth would be nudging their way between the tiny rocks, at least for a few days, our gravel walkways might even satisfy Francis Bacon.
Of course, there is more to a garden than well-raked gravel. Here are observations on 16 plants that caught my attention this morning:
• Pearly Everlasting (Anaphalis margaritacea). In the midst of the wild strawberries from the Wilderness Field Station, I see several Pearly Everlasting leaves poking through the strawberry foliage. Although I think the species is dioecious, every year they pop up at a different location and it appears they are managing to self-seed. Their appearance reminds me of a Pearly Everlasting that was always at the edge of the path to my cabin at the Field Station.
• Elderberry. Both of the Elderberry at the SW gate are in full bloom with dozens of white, delicately fragrant flower heads–in what Liberty Hyde Bailey identifies as “compound terminal cymes.” The younger Elderberry, just four years old, has exploded in the past year, now over 15' tall, much larger than its parent. I suspect these Elderberry are a variety of Sambucus canadensis, but I would prefer to have that suspicion confirmed before attempting to do anything with the purple fruit (which has usually been quite popular with local birds).
• Asclepias. The milkweed’s orange blossoms are just beginning to open; below the Asclepias are a dozen stunning–though short-lived--yellow blooms of a Primrose.
• Spiderworts. Like the Primrose, each bloom only survives for a day, but the Spiderworts have a tight cluster of sequential blooms, ensuring their bloom cycle lasts longer. With the exception of one Spiderwort with yellow foliage planted along the Rain Garden, all the other Spiderworts in the garden are self-sown, popping up where ever they please. Most get pulled up or cut back after their blooms are spent, but they have no problem producing many new offspring in shade or full sun, in moist compost or a dry, compacted, gravel walkway.
• Yarrows. Both the yellow and red yarrows that greet visitors descending from the patio are in bloom. Last year the red yarrows in the “L” bed never caught up with the yellows, but this year they have done a better job of coordinating their bloom cycle.
• Johnson’s Blue Cranesbill. The two Johnson’s Blue Cranesbill in the “D” bed produce lovely light blue blooms, but the plants are already leggy and flopping over. They should be moved to the back of the border and replaced with the Rozanne Cranesbill, a geranium hybrid which has comparable blooms but a much tighter habit.
• Maltese Cross. My Hortus Third dictionary lists four common names for Lychnis chalcedonia: Maltese Cross, Jerusalem Cross, Scarlet Lightning, and London Pride; the Wikipedia entry lists 19 names–though the list does not include London Pride (a name used by New England gardeners in the 1800s). The Maltese Cross in both the “D” and “E” beds are now in full bloom, their distinctive red petals providing dramatic bits of color even when seen at a distance.
• Peacock Orchids (Gladiolus acidanthera). One task I started this morning was planting the Peacock Orchid corms; many of them–though stored in peat moss in a tightly covered black plastic bin--have already sent out pale, ghostly white stems, assiduously seeking sunlight. As I was planting the corms, I often left the tips of the white spears sticking above the soil. I trust the stems will quickly adopt their normal burgundy and green color pattern.
• Dahlias. The dahlia tubers were planted about three weeks ago in the “E” and “J” beds–the same beds used last year. All the Bishops of Llandaff’s are in the “E” bed, accompanied by several dahlia hybrids developed by Harlo Hadow’s father in Wisconsin.
• Coreopsis. Most of the coreopsis in the garden–all natives to North or Central America--are either C. verticillata (the “Moonbeam” and “Zagreb” perennials) or C. tinctoria (the plains tickseed, a vigorous self-seeding annual). The gravel walkway around the “E” bed produced hundreds of baby tickseeds. Most of them were killed by my hoe, but I dug up a few and transplanted them to make a thin coreopsis border around the bed of dahlias. I also left several dozen in the herb bed in front of the basil, chives, fennel, rosemary, lavender, pepper plants, and one tomato plant. Some of the coreopsis in the gravel walkway have already begun to bloom, bearing bright yellow petals with maroon centers. If I keep them deadheaded, they should continue blooming into the fall.
• Creeping Thyme. Thymus serpyllum ‘Pink Chintz’ has become one of my favorite plants: a dense mat of foliage–no more than 1" in height--already covered with tiny pink flowers, a favorite with many pollinators. The primary challenge is the wood sorrel, which loves to partner with the thyme. The sorrel has deep tap roots, making it difficult to dislodge without disturbing the thyme. The sorrel leaves are attractive and probably edible–appropriate for an herb garden–but I think it best to keep their aggressive spreading efforts in check.
• Ox-Eye Daisies and Becky Shasta Daisies. The Ox-Eyes are done, except for a few, random blossoms. They put on a great display under the pergola–plus a few miscellaneous clumps appearing throughout the garden–but it’s now time to deadhead them and trust their green foliage will provide a pleasant, unobtrusive background for the remainder of the year. The blooms of Becky’s Shasta Daisies are just beginning to open, most notably the two clumps at the west end of the “F” bed, separated by a lovely beardtongue with white blooms. In my sporadic efforts to turn the “F” bed into a “white flower” bed, this daisy/beardtongue combination remains one of my few points of success. Much more prominent is the 6' wide swath of sunflowers that have taken over the middle of the border.
• Dwarf Asiatic Lilies. These ‘Ivory Pixie’ and ‘Pink Pixie’ lilies were among the first flowers I planted in the garden, introduced in July of 2014. Shortly after they were finished blooming that first year, they were eaten to the ground (probably by rabbits), and I assumed that was the end of that experiment. But they bounced back the following spring and three (of four) clumps have continued to expand, producing a potent display of pink and ivory-cream blooms at the front of the “G” and “H” borders. They certainly help to draw attention away from the lingering daffodil foliage.
• Japanese Iris. These iris were donated for use in the Rain Garden in the summer of 2015 and for the first two years produced no blooms. Last year a few purple blooms appeared in June, the shape of the flowers confirming they were Japanese iris. This year we have our first full display, providing a welcome sequence to the May blooms of the Flag Iris and Siberian Iris. Most of the Japanese flower stems have 2-3 blooms, the flowers lasting much longer than blooms of the other iris.
• Hollyhocks. My efforts to establish a bed of Hollyhocks in the “A2" bed have failed–though the Mallows in that area have thrived--but Hollyhocks in the “I” bed have re-emerged, and it appears some pink blooms will be opening later this week–perhaps a few days before the Japanese beetles arrive on the scene. I have also discovered a Hollyhocks growing by the new compost bin under the flowering crab. I have no idea where that fellow came from, but it appears to be happy and has some emerging flower buds. There are also several Hollyhocks under the NW flowering crab. Last year the Hollyhocks in that area produced dark purple blooms that were almost black.
• Coneflowers. A few, randomly situated purple Coneflowers are just beginning to bloom. There are many baby Coneflowers sprinkled throughout the garden. This coming week I hope to dig up some of those Coneflowers, transplant them into peat pots, and see how well they develop in the greenhouse.
Below is a photo from May 10, well before any flowers on the rose bush, Siberian Iris, Dwarf Lilac, or Ox-Eye Daisies.
Monday Morning Garden Report: 21 May 2018
As I begin typing this report, it’s 10:30 am on a Monday morning, temperature of 57F, humidity over 95%, overcast, a dense mist coming down. Rain gauge reported 0.4" of rain overnight. Classic English Garden weather, reminding me of a morning I spent a couple years ago at Holehird Gardens in Cumbria. The size and design of Holehird’s walled garden is quite similar to Coe’s–and we share many of the same flowers. The terrain, of course, is different. Outside Holehird’s walls are the Lake District fells, including the marvelous Langdale Pikes northwest of the garden. Harrison Stickle and Pavey Ark were never far from our sight as several of us spent an hour walking around Holehird with the chief gardener. Although midway through our tour, a shower arrived, we continued the walk, passing by half a dozen gardeners–all volunteers–diligently working in the rain at their assigned garden beds. Later that morning, a gardener responsible for the agapanthus bed told me that if she stopped working whenever it started to rain, she would never get anything done.
Although this morning in Iowa I did enjoy catching up on indoor tasks, by 9:30 I had grown impatient and was anxious to get into the garden, a resolve emboldened by the temporary suspension of the morning rain. My primary focus was on the two raised herb beds. Last week I had planted four basil plants in one bed and re-buried the rosemary (which must be brought indoors each winter). This morning I planted two “Sweet Sunrise” bell peppers and six small pots of nasturtiums–started from seed in March. I also repositioned a London Pride so there was space to move two clumps of chives from one raised bed to the other, giving us two clumps in each bed. While the creeping thyme looks great (though full of tiny wood sorrels that should be removed), one of the English thymes did not survive the winter, and I could not find any new growth on one of the two lavenders at the back of a raised bed. Before deciding how I wanted to deal with those deaths, the drizzle had returned and I decided I’m not as weather-hardy as the Holehird troops. It was time to come in and record my morning’s observations.
• Amsonia hubrechtii. For the first time, the two Blue Star Amsonia planted in 2015 have both produced their trademark blue-star blooms. Now that they have achieved this milestone, I’m hoping they may start expanding beyond the two single stalks. While they do produce lovely golden yellow foliage in the fall, we are lacking a critical mass of Amsonia necessary for them to have any impact on the “K” bed.
• Baptisia. The false indigo are nearly all in bloom. The ones in the “A1" bed provide an interesting tension with the dark burgundy peony blossoms in front of them. It’s probably a contrast in color and tone that many gardeners would not enjoy, but I like the contrast. [The photo at the end of this report features fresh Baptisia buds and foliage earlier this month.]
• Buddleia. Earlier this month I had feared one of the butterfly bushes had not survived, but this morning I saw tiny leaves at the base of the buddleia, confirming it was gearing up for its third summer run in the Coe garden.
• Clematis. Wow. What a difference a year makes. In 2015 I planted two clematis next to the pergola’s front pillars. Since then both clematis have struggled, sending up 2-3' vines and a few blooms, but nothing spectacular. And then comes May of 2018. The clematis in the “H” bed has exploded with new vine growth and more than thirty 4-6" wide, pale lavender-toned blooms. According to the label, this should be a “Duchess of Albany” clematis, but it’s blooming earlier than advertised, the blooms are larger than advertised, and the color is not as advertised. Perhaps this is an error in my record-keeping. Another clematis that has come out of nowhere this spring is one that I transplanted last spring so it could wind its way up both a small trellis and a shrub rose in the “H” bed. It has not yet bloomed, but it has already grown over six feet this spring and appears to be loaded with buds. This could be the year of the clematis.
• Dahlias. The dahlias are all planted–the Bishops in the “E” flower bed and the other dahlias in the “J” bed. Although we lost several dahlia tubers stored at the bottom of the two peat-filled tubs, most of the dahlias came through in good shape, and I’m optimistic we will have a good dahlia show later this summer–though I still need to give them some composted manure, a phosphate/potassium stimulant, and fresh mulch.
• Firewitch Dianthus. A perfect front of the border plant: beautiful silver-gray foliage with those little bright pink, long-lasting flowers. My plan is to remove one of the catmint clumps in the “L” bed and replace it with a second patch of this dianthus.
• Flag Iris. The marvelous purple blooms on the flag iris next to the student apartment are already gone, only lasting 4-5 days. In contrast, the pale blue iris by the garden shed and at the back of the rain garden remain in great form.
• Joan Elliot Clustered Bellflower (Campanula glomerata). Three of these bellflowers form a row in front of the “A1" border, producing delphinium-purple flower clusters. The blooms on one bellflower have already opened, and the other two are on their way.
• Lilacs. The fragrance of the two dwarf lilacs should linger a few more days.
• Ox-Eye Daisies. The daisies under the pergola are now fully open. There should be a 2-3 week stretch when they will be one of the highlights of the garden, particularly in another week when the Siberian Iris are also in bloom in the “G” and “H” beds.
• Peonies. The next two weeks should be the prime time for peonies. The big reds in the “M1" bed are just beginning to open up. They don’t last long, but they put on a show. It appears that most of the various peonies I collected together last fall in the “G” bed peninsula are doing well with many bloom buds. I’m also pleased with the large peony in the “D” bed that I separated from a tansy. Its buds should be opening by the end of the week.
• Siberian Iris. None of the blossoms have opened up yet, but by next week they should be in full force, providing one of the garden’s best shows.
As I begin typing this report, it’s 10:30 am on a Monday morning, temperature of 57F, humidity over 95%, overcast, a dense mist coming down. Rain gauge reported 0.4" of rain overnight. Classic English Garden weather, reminding me of a morning I spent a couple years ago at Holehird Gardens in Cumbria. The size and design of Holehird’s walled garden is quite similar to Coe’s–and we share many of the same flowers. The terrain, of course, is different. Outside Holehird’s walls are the Lake District fells, including the marvelous Langdale Pikes northwest of the garden. Harrison Stickle and Pavey Ark were never far from our sight as several of us spent an hour walking around Holehird with the chief gardener. Although midway through our tour, a shower arrived, we continued the walk, passing by half a dozen gardeners–all volunteers–diligently working in the rain at their assigned garden beds. Later that morning, a gardener responsible for the agapanthus bed told me that if she stopped working whenever it started to rain, she would never get anything done.
Although this morning in Iowa I did enjoy catching up on indoor tasks, by 9:30 I had grown impatient and was anxious to get into the garden, a resolve emboldened by the temporary suspension of the morning rain. My primary focus was on the two raised herb beds. Last week I had planted four basil plants in one bed and re-buried the rosemary (which must be brought indoors each winter). This morning I planted two “Sweet Sunrise” bell peppers and six small pots of nasturtiums–started from seed in March. I also repositioned a London Pride so there was space to move two clumps of chives from one raised bed to the other, giving us two clumps in each bed. While the creeping thyme looks great (though full of tiny wood sorrels that should be removed), one of the English thymes did not survive the winter, and I could not find any new growth on one of the two lavenders at the back of a raised bed. Before deciding how I wanted to deal with those deaths, the drizzle had returned and I decided I’m not as weather-hardy as the Holehird troops. It was time to come in and record my morning’s observations.
• Amsonia hubrechtii. For the first time, the two Blue Star Amsonia planted in 2015 have both produced their trademark blue-star blooms. Now that they have achieved this milestone, I’m hoping they may start expanding beyond the two single stalks. While they do produce lovely golden yellow foliage in the fall, we are lacking a critical mass of Amsonia necessary for them to have any impact on the “K” bed.
• Baptisia. The false indigo are nearly all in bloom. The ones in the “A1" bed provide an interesting tension with the dark burgundy peony blossoms in front of them. It’s probably a contrast in color and tone that many gardeners would not enjoy, but I like the contrast. [The photo at the end of this report features fresh Baptisia buds and foliage earlier this month.]
• Buddleia. Earlier this month I had feared one of the butterfly bushes had not survived, but this morning I saw tiny leaves at the base of the buddleia, confirming it was gearing up for its third summer run in the Coe garden.
• Clematis. Wow. What a difference a year makes. In 2015 I planted two clematis next to the pergola’s front pillars. Since then both clematis have struggled, sending up 2-3' vines and a few blooms, but nothing spectacular. And then comes May of 2018. The clematis in the “H” bed has exploded with new vine growth and more than thirty 4-6" wide, pale lavender-toned blooms. According to the label, this should be a “Duchess of Albany” clematis, but it’s blooming earlier than advertised, the blooms are larger than advertised, and the color is not as advertised. Perhaps this is an error in my record-keeping. Another clematis that has come out of nowhere this spring is one that I transplanted last spring so it could wind its way up both a small trellis and a shrub rose in the “H” bed. It has not yet bloomed, but it has already grown over six feet this spring and appears to be loaded with buds. This could be the year of the clematis.
• Dahlias. The dahlias are all planted–the Bishops in the “E” flower bed and the other dahlias in the “J” bed. Although we lost several dahlia tubers stored at the bottom of the two peat-filled tubs, most of the dahlias came through in good shape, and I’m optimistic we will have a good dahlia show later this summer–though I still need to give them some composted manure, a phosphate/potassium stimulant, and fresh mulch.
• Firewitch Dianthus. A perfect front of the border plant: beautiful silver-gray foliage with those little bright pink, long-lasting flowers. My plan is to remove one of the catmint clumps in the “L” bed and replace it with a second patch of this dianthus.
• Flag Iris. The marvelous purple blooms on the flag iris next to the student apartment are already gone, only lasting 4-5 days. In contrast, the pale blue iris by the garden shed and at the back of the rain garden remain in great form.
• Joan Elliot Clustered Bellflower (Campanula glomerata). Three of these bellflowers form a row in front of the “A1" border, producing delphinium-purple flower clusters. The blooms on one bellflower have already opened, and the other two are on their way.
• Lilacs. The fragrance of the two dwarf lilacs should linger a few more days.
• Ox-Eye Daisies. The daisies under the pergola are now fully open. There should be a 2-3 week stretch when they will be one of the highlights of the garden, particularly in another week when the Siberian Iris are also in bloom in the “G” and “H” beds.
• Peonies. The next two weeks should be the prime time for peonies. The big reds in the “M1" bed are just beginning to open up. They don’t last long, but they put on a show. It appears that most of the various peonies I collected together last fall in the “G” bed peninsula are doing well with many bloom buds. I’m also pleased with the large peony in the “D” bed that I separated from a tansy. Its buds should be opening by the end of the week.
• Siberian Iris. None of the blossoms have opened up yet, but by next week they should be in full force, providing one of the garden’s best shows.
Monday Morning Garden Report: 14 May 2018
Last week my report focused on plants labeled in the “A” to “H” part of the alphabet. This morning’s report provides an update on affairs with the “I” to “Z” inhabitants. ~Bob
• Iris. Four colonies of Flag Iris: one group in the rain garden (late developing, no flower buds yet to appear), one group on the berm overlooking the rain garden (many buds just emerging), and the two groups in front of the garden shed. The iris next to the garden shed receive the most sun, and their pale, lilac-tinted flowers will begin opening in another day or two. As for the iris facing them–the ones who spend most of their day in the shadow of a student apartment--their dramatic purple flowers should begin opening a day or two later. All these iris did well last year, but now in their 3rd or 4th year, the expanded number of buds suggests this will be their best show yet.
• Joe-Pye Weed. We now have Joe-Pye Weed growing in eight beds–plus several other beds with volunteer Joe-Pyes popping up unannounced and unsolicited. They are an attractive plant in their early days: lemon-green, textured leaves over erect burgundy trunks. A great native plant for spring, summer, and fall.
• Karl Foerster Feather Reed Grass. An attractive, reliable ornamental grass with year-around interest, in a class by itself. It was just a couple of weeks ago that I finally cut away last year’s foliage, but each clump now has a full head of new green hair, well ahead of the Miscanthus, the Switch Grasses, and most of the other ornamental grasses.
• Lamb’s Ear. Earlier this spring I was concerned that one of the Helene Von Stein Lamb’s Ear had not survived, but they are all doing well, resplendent with their new, fuzzy ears.
• Lilacs. The two dwarf lilacs are covered with flower buds. They should be in full bloom by the end of this week. While restructuring the “H” flower bed this week, I’m expecting to be immersed in lilac fragrance.
• Lungwort. In the middle of last summer our lone Pulmonaria Lungwort in the “K” bed looked bedraggled and unhappy with the relentless hot and dry August. But it revived in the fall, and this spring has been covered with blue and pink blooms for several weeks. The bright Lungwort blooms always surprise me. Given its foliage and preference for moist, shady terrain, I find the ebullient colors incongruous, but it’s an incongruity I cherish.
• Lupine. The foliage and blooms of the lupine and the columbine in one of the raised “J” beds nicely complement each other, but the columbine have grown larger and more expansive than I had expected–in effect, shoving the lupine to the side of the stage. After everyone has completed their bloom production, I may do some repositioning. While weeding the gravel walkway, I did discover half a dozen baby lupines growing in the gravel. I dug them up and transplanted into two open spaces in the raised “J” bed. Despite my unreliable watering schedule, they are all still alive one week later. A couple of lupine in the “D” bed also have reappeared, but they didn’t bloom last year and so far I’ve seen no evidence of emerging buds.
• Loosestrife. A significant portion of my gardening time last fall was attempting to remove the Gooseneck Loosestrife (Lysimachia clethroides) from significant portions of the “G” bed. I suspect the loosestrife was initially planted because of its ability to thrive in the wet, shady soil at the east end of the garden and because of the plant’s lovely, curved racemes of small white flowers–the plant’s goose neck. But the root system is ravenous in its desire for gobbling up more terrain. This spring my attention has turned to pulling out all the loosestrife I can find in the “H” bed–along with the bindweed and horsetail. My goal this week is to remove the gooseneck and its friends from the areas around the dwarf lilac, hydrangea, and honeysuckle in the “H” bed. Next week, I’ll turn my attention to the remaining swath of gooseneck on a berm next to the rain garden. I plan to replant a few loosestrife in two tubs buried in the garden bed and see if the tubs can keep the loosestrife from spreading. That has worked with the tub-enclosed ribbon grass in the “H” bed under the shrub rose.
• Love-in-a-Mist. The “L” bed has thousands of baby Ragged Ladies (i.e., Nigella damascena).
• Moss Phlox. A couple of the moss phlox in the rock garden need to be cut back and in one case replanted, but they have nevertheless made the rock garden one of my favorite areas. It’s hard to recall that four years ago, this was one of the garden’s most desolate areas, and now the scene has become an appealing spring-time attraction.
• Oregano: Three oregano plants in the garden, all just beginning to show new growth this past week.
• Ox-Eye Daisies: The ox-eyes under the pergola are preparing to bloom, each year filling in more gaps along the walkway border. Should be a marvelous display the last two weeks in May.
• Penstemon. The dark burgundy foliage of the Husker-Red Beardtongue (P. digitalis) is easy to spot throughout the garden, an appealing complement to the various green tones of most spring foliage. Several Husker-Reds have emerged along the square stepping stones in the “C” bed. This coming week, I will dig up some random Husker-Red volunteers and replant them along that stepping-stone path.
• Prairie Smoke. I just discovered this North American native, Geum triflorum, is hardy to Zone 1, capable of handling temperatures of 50 degrees below zero. I don’t recall any other plants in the garden supposedly able to handle such extreme winter-time conditions. The two Prairie Smoke in the front border of the “I” bed are each 1' wide clumps and covered with their unique, distinctive blooms–though their fuzzy, smoke-like seed pods are what provide the ultimate attraction.
• Russian Sage: Of the ten Russian Sage planted in the “G”, “H”, and “I” beds, it appears that three have not survived. Since the departed are all located close to ones that are thriving, it’s not clear to me what was the cause of the problem. Of the ones doing well, all their new foliage is coming from their base; they may not be as winter hardy as I had assumed.
• Salvia. The three May Night Meadow Sages in the “I” bed are the first salvias in the garden to acquire full foliage and begin blooming. In contrast the Salvia officinalis (common sage) in the raised “E” herb bed is just beginning to leaf out. The “I” bed receives more morning sun and that soil warms up much faster than the soil that is spending significant hours in the shadow of the south-side wall.
• Snow-in-Summer. Both of the raised “J” beds have several clumps of Snow-in-Summer (Cerastium tomentosum), and they look great, dozens of lovely white blooms over the gray foliage. They have the reputation for aggressive spreading, but in these beds they have been well behaved. I did, however, discover several babies growing in the gravel walkway. Those I dug up and replanted in one of the flower bed segments of the new sundial in front of the gazebo.
• Spurge. First two weeks in May are the prime time for the spurge in the “C” and “L” beds; their bright, tightly grouped, yellow blooms are the stars of the show, providing a dynamic energy to those two beds, prior to the emergence of the daylilies.
• Sunflowers. The perennial sunflowers in the back of the “A2" bed have all come back–with moderate spreading. Last year I tried some annual sunflowers in front of them, but the annuals did not do well, perhaps because they needed a sunnier location. Need to find a bright, sunflower-like flower, not more than 3' tall, that can fit between the perennial sunflowers and the front of the border.
• Sweet Annie. Thousands of this annual artemisia are popping up in the gravel walkway that serves the SW gate. We’ll need to kill 99% of them, but for now it’s fun to see all those baby artemisia emerging in the walkways–an intentionally inhospitable environment for most plants.
• Wisteria. All four wisteria are leafing out. No evidence of any significant winter damage. In contrast, the honeysuckle in the “H” and “M1" beds experienced a lot of winter kill; most of their new leaves are coming from the base of the plants.
• Yarrow. The old yarrow plants in the NW corner of the “C” bed look in excellent shape, with the white buds beginning to form, reminding me of the buds on Pearly Everlasting. Also small buds popping up on the Ballerina Yarrow at the corners of the “C” and “L” beds.
• Zebra Stripe Maiden Grass. In the “C” bed we have one clump of this Miscanthus sinensis, often labeled “Gold Breeze” because of its distinctive horizontal yellow and green stripes. Just a couple of weeks ago I finally cut back last year’s foliage, and a few spears of the striped foliage are just beginning to appear around the outer edges.
Last week my report focused on plants labeled in the “A” to “H” part of the alphabet. This morning’s report provides an update on affairs with the “I” to “Z” inhabitants. ~Bob
• Iris. Four colonies of Flag Iris: one group in the rain garden (late developing, no flower buds yet to appear), one group on the berm overlooking the rain garden (many buds just emerging), and the two groups in front of the garden shed. The iris next to the garden shed receive the most sun, and their pale, lilac-tinted flowers will begin opening in another day or two. As for the iris facing them–the ones who spend most of their day in the shadow of a student apartment--their dramatic purple flowers should begin opening a day or two later. All these iris did well last year, but now in their 3rd or 4th year, the expanded number of buds suggests this will be their best show yet.
• Joe-Pye Weed. We now have Joe-Pye Weed growing in eight beds–plus several other beds with volunteer Joe-Pyes popping up unannounced and unsolicited. They are an attractive plant in their early days: lemon-green, textured leaves over erect burgundy trunks. A great native plant for spring, summer, and fall.
• Karl Foerster Feather Reed Grass. An attractive, reliable ornamental grass with year-around interest, in a class by itself. It was just a couple of weeks ago that I finally cut away last year’s foliage, but each clump now has a full head of new green hair, well ahead of the Miscanthus, the Switch Grasses, and most of the other ornamental grasses.
• Lamb’s Ear. Earlier this spring I was concerned that one of the Helene Von Stein Lamb’s Ear had not survived, but they are all doing well, resplendent with their new, fuzzy ears.
• Lilacs. The two dwarf lilacs are covered with flower buds. They should be in full bloom by the end of this week. While restructuring the “H” flower bed this week, I’m expecting to be immersed in lilac fragrance.
• Lungwort. In the middle of last summer our lone Pulmonaria Lungwort in the “K” bed looked bedraggled and unhappy with the relentless hot and dry August. But it revived in the fall, and this spring has been covered with blue and pink blooms for several weeks. The bright Lungwort blooms always surprise me. Given its foliage and preference for moist, shady terrain, I find the ebullient colors incongruous, but it’s an incongruity I cherish.
• Lupine. The foliage and blooms of the lupine and the columbine in one of the raised “J” beds nicely complement each other, but the columbine have grown larger and more expansive than I had expected–in effect, shoving the lupine to the side of the stage. After everyone has completed their bloom production, I may do some repositioning. While weeding the gravel walkway, I did discover half a dozen baby lupines growing in the gravel. I dug them up and transplanted into two open spaces in the raised “J” bed. Despite my unreliable watering schedule, they are all still alive one week later. A couple of lupine in the “D” bed also have reappeared, but they didn’t bloom last year and so far I’ve seen no evidence of emerging buds.
• Loosestrife. A significant portion of my gardening time last fall was attempting to remove the Gooseneck Loosestrife (Lysimachia clethroides) from significant portions of the “G” bed. I suspect the loosestrife was initially planted because of its ability to thrive in the wet, shady soil at the east end of the garden and because of the plant’s lovely, curved racemes of small white flowers–the plant’s goose neck. But the root system is ravenous in its desire for gobbling up more terrain. This spring my attention has turned to pulling out all the loosestrife I can find in the “H” bed–along with the bindweed and horsetail. My goal this week is to remove the gooseneck and its friends from the areas around the dwarf lilac, hydrangea, and honeysuckle in the “H” bed. Next week, I’ll turn my attention to the remaining swath of gooseneck on a berm next to the rain garden. I plan to replant a few loosestrife in two tubs buried in the garden bed and see if the tubs can keep the loosestrife from spreading. That has worked with the tub-enclosed ribbon grass in the “H” bed under the shrub rose.
• Love-in-a-Mist. The “L” bed has thousands of baby Ragged Ladies (i.e., Nigella damascena).
• Moss Phlox. A couple of the moss phlox in the rock garden need to be cut back and in one case replanted, but they have nevertheless made the rock garden one of my favorite areas. It’s hard to recall that four years ago, this was one of the garden’s most desolate areas, and now the scene has become an appealing spring-time attraction.
• Oregano: Three oregano plants in the garden, all just beginning to show new growth this past week.
• Ox-Eye Daisies: The ox-eyes under the pergola are preparing to bloom, each year filling in more gaps along the walkway border. Should be a marvelous display the last two weeks in May.
• Penstemon. The dark burgundy foliage of the Husker-Red Beardtongue (P. digitalis) is easy to spot throughout the garden, an appealing complement to the various green tones of most spring foliage. Several Husker-Reds have emerged along the square stepping stones in the “C” bed. This coming week, I will dig up some random Husker-Red volunteers and replant them along that stepping-stone path.
• Prairie Smoke. I just discovered this North American native, Geum triflorum, is hardy to Zone 1, capable of handling temperatures of 50 degrees below zero. I don’t recall any other plants in the garden supposedly able to handle such extreme winter-time conditions. The two Prairie Smoke in the front border of the “I” bed are each 1' wide clumps and covered with their unique, distinctive blooms–though their fuzzy, smoke-like seed pods are what provide the ultimate attraction.
• Russian Sage: Of the ten Russian Sage planted in the “G”, “H”, and “I” beds, it appears that three have not survived. Since the departed are all located close to ones that are thriving, it’s not clear to me what was the cause of the problem. Of the ones doing well, all their new foliage is coming from their base; they may not be as winter hardy as I had assumed.
• Salvia. The three May Night Meadow Sages in the “I” bed are the first salvias in the garden to acquire full foliage and begin blooming. In contrast the Salvia officinalis (common sage) in the raised “E” herb bed is just beginning to leaf out. The “I” bed receives more morning sun and that soil warms up much faster than the soil that is spending significant hours in the shadow of the south-side wall.
• Snow-in-Summer. Both of the raised “J” beds have several clumps of Snow-in-Summer (Cerastium tomentosum), and they look great, dozens of lovely white blooms over the gray foliage. They have the reputation for aggressive spreading, but in these beds they have been well behaved. I did, however, discover several babies growing in the gravel walkway. Those I dug up and replanted in one of the flower bed segments of the new sundial in front of the gazebo.
• Spurge. First two weeks in May are the prime time for the spurge in the “C” and “L” beds; their bright, tightly grouped, yellow blooms are the stars of the show, providing a dynamic energy to those two beds, prior to the emergence of the daylilies.
• Sunflowers. The perennial sunflowers in the back of the “A2" bed have all come back–with moderate spreading. Last year I tried some annual sunflowers in front of them, but the annuals did not do well, perhaps because they needed a sunnier location. Need to find a bright, sunflower-like flower, not more than 3' tall, that can fit between the perennial sunflowers and the front of the border.
• Sweet Annie. Thousands of this annual artemisia are popping up in the gravel walkway that serves the SW gate. We’ll need to kill 99% of them, but for now it’s fun to see all those baby artemisia emerging in the walkways–an intentionally inhospitable environment for most plants.
• Wisteria. All four wisteria are leafing out. No evidence of any significant winter damage. In contrast, the honeysuckle in the “H” and “M1" beds experienced a lot of winter kill; most of their new leaves are coming from the base of the plants.
• Yarrow. The old yarrow plants in the NW corner of the “C” bed look in excellent shape, with the white buds beginning to form, reminding me of the buds on Pearly Everlasting. Also small buds popping up on the Ballerina Yarrow at the corners of the “C” and “L” beds.
• Zebra Stripe Maiden Grass. In the “C” bed we have one clump of this Miscanthus sinensis, often labeled “Gold Breeze” because of its distinctive horizontal yellow and green stripes. Just a couple of weeks ago I finally cut back last year’s foliage, and a few spears of the striped foliage are just beginning to appear around the outer edges.
Monday Morning Garden Report: 7 May 2018
What an incredible difference a week makes. Last Monday, the garden was a brown landscape with splotches of green foliage and random points of color, most notably the daffodils. This week, it’s the reverse: the greens prevail–including the lawn surrounding the fountain–while the browns are relegated to the corners and occasional pauses among emerging plants. Rather than report on all the new arrivals, this week I’ll focus on a sample of plants in the front end of the alphabet, saving the ‘L” to “Z” plants for next week’s report.
• Alliums: Both clumps of Allium Millenium at the corners of the “A1" and “M1" beds have emerged with dozens of leafy spears–though so far no flower buds. As for the globe Allium in the “D” and “L” beds, they have many large buds, like balloons tethered above the foliage. They should begin opening by the end of the week.
• Baptisia: The False Indigo have all emerged, plus a sprinkle of baby Baptisia around their feet. Plentiful green flower buds, though I doubt they will open up before next week.
• Bleeding Hearts: The old Bleeding Heart in the “M1" bed is resplendent with its strands of pink and white blooms. In 2014, the first spring I worked in the garden, this was one of the first flowers to bloom and provided a welcome inspiration, a bravado made more resonant by the fact that this area was bereft of other vegetation. In the last four years, Peonies, Baptisia, a Hosta, and a Sedum ground cover have expanded into the area, and the Bleeding Heart has diminished in size, striking a more modest pose. This Bleeding Heart is probably a Dicentra spectabilis, a guess based upon the size of the plant and its summer dormancy, disappearing after it has finished blooming. There is another Bleeding Heart, planted two years ago, with a single row of white blooms in the “F” bed, and near the front of the border a miniature Bleeding Heart with a single tiny blue bloom.
• Buddleia: Because of our Zone 4-5 winters, the Buddleia dies back to the ground each winter. In the middle of April when I pulled off the straw covering the Buddleia–and its “A1" bed partner, the Crocosima–there was no evidence of any new growth with either of the two bushes. Finally, today, I saw the first tiny green leaves at the base of the larger Buddleia. The smaller Buddleia, however, has not yet demonstrated it has survived the winter. Several authors in my garden library have argued against the use of Buddleia in Midwest gardens because they attract nectar addicts away from native sources that provide a wider range of benefits. But the Buddleia blooms are so attractive and long-lasting–like having a lilac bush that knows how to bloom throughout the summer–and so popular with the swallowtails and other butterflies, I’m not ready to cast them out from our small garden, a space full of ideological and ecological compromises. Plus, I have such vivid memories of encounters with Buddleia in several of my favorite English gardens. If the one Buddleia does not survive, I will probably purchase a replacement.
• Brunnera: We have three Brunnera cultivars in the garden: Jack Frost, Silver Heart, and Diane’s Gold (six DG’s added last spring, one of which did not survive). These are wonderful shade plants, and their display of sprightly, blue, forget-me-not-like blossoms are always refreshing. The blooms should linger for several weeks, but the next few days they will likely be at their best.
• Chives: The Chives in the Herb Garden are all thriving, with buds on the two older and larger plants that should be opening by the end of the week.
• Columbine: Aquilegia canadensis is a Midwest native spring wildflower with lovely foliage (reminding me of meadow rue) and drooping red sepals, yellow petals, and distinctive spurs. These have self-seeded throughout several beds, including a dramatic increase of plants this year in the “A1" bed. They seem to do well in a wide range of locations. Some blooms should be fully open by the end of the week. I’ve read that hummingbirds like Columbine blooms. Perhaps this year some migrant hummingbirds will find our A. canadensis to their liking.
• Coreopsis: No blooms yet, but these perennial Coreopsis colonies produce a beautiful carpet of foliage; one of my favorite front-of-border plants.
• Crab Apple: Last year the flowering crab blossoms were completely gone by the end of April, well before graduation weekend. This year I thought their timing might perfectly complement the college calendar, but the white blossoms are just beginning to open, a day after yesterday’s commencement ceremonies. They put on a great show, but it doesn’t last long. It’s likely that by next Monday the ground will be littered with brownish/white decaying petals.
• Crocosima: When I removed the straw from the “A1" bed where the Crocosima reside, I saw no evidence of any green shoots. But today I spotted four little green spears, confirming the Crocosima had survived. Although they are a borderline Zone 5/6 plant, I was optimistic the combination of straw and snow cover would ensure their survival.
• Daffodils: Just a few lingering blooms, the latest bloomers are the double narcissus with a central cluster of yellow petals and an outer ring of white petals. There are also a few isolated Tete-a-Tete daffs hanging on. Now it’s time to deadhead everyone, provide them some organic fertilizer, and divide/separate the clumps that did not produce any blooms.
• Dandelion: Last fall we began manually digging up dandelions in the lawn, and we’re still at it. Every morning for the past three weeks, I’ve been spending at least 30 minutes using my Red Pig trowel to lift up plants and, if I’m lucky, their attached roots. It’s a slow business, but I m trying to convince myself we are making progress. The repetitive exercise feels similar to the summer weeks when every morning I harvest the Japanese beetles. For several consecutive mornings last week, we had 50 or more dandelion blooms in the lawn, but in the last few mornings, it has been a steady decline. This morning I only had about ten new blooms. The truly good news, however, is that the dandelions make great compost. This morning I stuck a soil thermometer into the compost bin where I have been depositing dandelion carcasses, and the temperature was almost 130 degrees, the highest temperature I’ve ever recorded in one of our compost heaps. I’m not sure a sustained temperature in the high 120s would kill off their seeds, but if dandelion roots and foliage produce good compost, I’ll be satisfied.
• Grape Hyacinths: We’re at that moment where both the “C” and “L” patches of Grape Hyacinths are in bloom; their synchronization should last for a few more days before the “L” patch begins to fade; the “C” patch will follow a few days later.
• Horsetail: Last year I dug up and cleared out all plants and roots in two parts of the “G” bed, hoping to eliminate the crown vetch, horsetail, and Gooseneck Loosestrife (Lysimachia clethroides). It appears I had reasonable success with the vetch and the loosestrife. This morning I did find a few sprigs of the vetch and loosestrife, but they were easily removed. The horsetail, however, is another matter. Its roots go very deep, making it impossible to pull up all the roots–which, left to their own devices, quickly generate new plants. It’s easy to see why the horsetail have survived for millions and millions of years.
• Hostas: Their bright, fresh foliage is emerging all over the garden; however, one great disappointment: the Sum and Substance I planted at the back of the “G” bed did not survive the winter.
After I finished composing these notes, I noticed that I tend to capitalize the names of the plants that I value, but I don't capitalize the names of the weeds (e.g., dandelions, horsetail, crown vetch). I suppose the capitalization is a sign of respect, an effort to honor their unique and personal contributions. As for the weeds, I respect them but it's harder for me to think of them as my friends.
What an incredible difference a week makes. Last Monday, the garden was a brown landscape with splotches of green foliage and random points of color, most notably the daffodils. This week, it’s the reverse: the greens prevail–including the lawn surrounding the fountain–while the browns are relegated to the corners and occasional pauses among emerging plants. Rather than report on all the new arrivals, this week I’ll focus on a sample of plants in the front end of the alphabet, saving the ‘L” to “Z” plants for next week’s report.
• Alliums: Both clumps of Allium Millenium at the corners of the “A1" and “M1" beds have emerged with dozens of leafy spears–though so far no flower buds. As for the globe Allium in the “D” and “L” beds, they have many large buds, like balloons tethered above the foliage. They should begin opening by the end of the week.
• Baptisia: The False Indigo have all emerged, plus a sprinkle of baby Baptisia around their feet. Plentiful green flower buds, though I doubt they will open up before next week.
• Bleeding Hearts: The old Bleeding Heart in the “M1" bed is resplendent with its strands of pink and white blooms. In 2014, the first spring I worked in the garden, this was one of the first flowers to bloom and provided a welcome inspiration, a bravado made more resonant by the fact that this area was bereft of other vegetation. In the last four years, Peonies, Baptisia, a Hosta, and a Sedum ground cover have expanded into the area, and the Bleeding Heart has diminished in size, striking a more modest pose. This Bleeding Heart is probably a Dicentra spectabilis, a guess based upon the size of the plant and its summer dormancy, disappearing after it has finished blooming. There is another Bleeding Heart, planted two years ago, with a single row of white blooms in the “F” bed, and near the front of the border a miniature Bleeding Heart with a single tiny blue bloom.
• Buddleia: Because of our Zone 4-5 winters, the Buddleia dies back to the ground each winter. In the middle of April when I pulled off the straw covering the Buddleia–and its “A1" bed partner, the Crocosima–there was no evidence of any new growth with either of the two bushes. Finally, today, I saw the first tiny green leaves at the base of the larger Buddleia. The smaller Buddleia, however, has not yet demonstrated it has survived the winter. Several authors in my garden library have argued against the use of Buddleia in Midwest gardens because they attract nectar addicts away from native sources that provide a wider range of benefits. But the Buddleia blooms are so attractive and long-lasting–like having a lilac bush that knows how to bloom throughout the summer–and so popular with the swallowtails and other butterflies, I’m not ready to cast them out from our small garden, a space full of ideological and ecological compromises. Plus, I have such vivid memories of encounters with Buddleia in several of my favorite English gardens. If the one Buddleia does not survive, I will probably purchase a replacement.
• Brunnera: We have three Brunnera cultivars in the garden: Jack Frost, Silver Heart, and Diane’s Gold (six DG’s added last spring, one of which did not survive). These are wonderful shade plants, and their display of sprightly, blue, forget-me-not-like blossoms are always refreshing. The blooms should linger for several weeks, but the next few days they will likely be at their best.
• Chives: The Chives in the Herb Garden are all thriving, with buds on the two older and larger plants that should be opening by the end of the week.
• Columbine: Aquilegia canadensis is a Midwest native spring wildflower with lovely foliage (reminding me of meadow rue) and drooping red sepals, yellow petals, and distinctive spurs. These have self-seeded throughout several beds, including a dramatic increase of plants this year in the “A1" bed. They seem to do well in a wide range of locations. Some blooms should be fully open by the end of the week. I’ve read that hummingbirds like Columbine blooms. Perhaps this year some migrant hummingbirds will find our A. canadensis to their liking.
• Coreopsis: No blooms yet, but these perennial Coreopsis colonies produce a beautiful carpet of foliage; one of my favorite front-of-border plants.
• Crab Apple: Last year the flowering crab blossoms were completely gone by the end of April, well before graduation weekend. This year I thought their timing might perfectly complement the college calendar, but the white blossoms are just beginning to open, a day after yesterday’s commencement ceremonies. They put on a great show, but it doesn’t last long. It’s likely that by next Monday the ground will be littered with brownish/white decaying petals.
• Crocosima: When I removed the straw from the “A1" bed where the Crocosima reside, I saw no evidence of any green shoots. But today I spotted four little green spears, confirming the Crocosima had survived. Although they are a borderline Zone 5/6 plant, I was optimistic the combination of straw and snow cover would ensure their survival.
• Daffodils: Just a few lingering blooms, the latest bloomers are the double narcissus with a central cluster of yellow petals and an outer ring of white petals. There are also a few isolated Tete-a-Tete daffs hanging on. Now it’s time to deadhead everyone, provide them some organic fertilizer, and divide/separate the clumps that did not produce any blooms.
• Dandelion: Last fall we began manually digging up dandelions in the lawn, and we’re still at it. Every morning for the past three weeks, I’ve been spending at least 30 minutes using my Red Pig trowel to lift up plants and, if I’m lucky, their attached roots. It’s a slow business, but I m trying to convince myself we are making progress. The repetitive exercise feels similar to the summer weeks when every morning I harvest the Japanese beetles. For several consecutive mornings last week, we had 50 or more dandelion blooms in the lawn, but in the last few mornings, it has been a steady decline. This morning I only had about ten new blooms. The truly good news, however, is that the dandelions make great compost. This morning I stuck a soil thermometer into the compost bin where I have been depositing dandelion carcasses, and the temperature was almost 130 degrees, the highest temperature I’ve ever recorded in one of our compost heaps. I’m not sure a sustained temperature in the high 120s would kill off their seeds, but if dandelion roots and foliage produce good compost, I’ll be satisfied.
• Grape Hyacinths: We’re at that moment where both the “C” and “L” patches of Grape Hyacinths are in bloom; their synchronization should last for a few more days before the “L” patch begins to fade; the “C” patch will follow a few days later.
• Horsetail: Last year I dug up and cleared out all plants and roots in two parts of the “G” bed, hoping to eliminate the crown vetch, horsetail, and Gooseneck Loosestrife (Lysimachia clethroides). It appears I had reasonable success with the vetch and the loosestrife. This morning I did find a few sprigs of the vetch and loosestrife, but they were easily removed. The horsetail, however, is another matter. Its roots go very deep, making it impossible to pull up all the roots–which, left to their own devices, quickly generate new plants. It’s easy to see why the horsetail have survived for millions and millions of years.
• Hostas: Their bright, fresh foliage is emerging all over the garden; however, one great disappointment: the Sum and Substance I planted at the back of the “G” bed did not survive the winter.
After I finished composing these notes, I noticed that I tend to capitalize the names of the plants that I value, but I don't capitalize the names of the weeds (e.g., dandelions, horsetail, crown vetch). I suppose the capitalization is a sign of respect, an effort to honor their unique and personal contributions. As for the weeds, I respect them but it's harder for me to think of them as my friends.
Monday Morning Garden Report for 16 April 2018
When I arrived this morning at 7:30, the temperature was 26F, and the garden was covered with a thin veneer of ice and snow. Over the weekend several bunches of daffodil buds had opened, including two clumps of the delightful tete-a-tetes in the “I” and “K” beds. This morning all were bent over, faces down. By noon, however, most of the snow was gone (except for lingering pockets in shady areas and nestled among yew branches), and the daffodils had sprung back up, welcoming visitors into the garden.
Although the garden looks much the same as it did under the snow last Monday, a lot has happened in the past seven days. Tuesday and Wednesday were lovely spring days, with sunshine and temperatures into the 50s & 60s. Since the perennial beds don’t necessarily require my attention on such lovely days, I left the garden to its own inclinations and used those hours for working in my vegetable garden allotment, located near Wickiup Hill Learning Center. The soil temperature reached into the 50s, and the moisture content was perfect for tilling. Although by noon on Thursday my vegetable garden efforts were terminated by a cold and windy rain, I had already installed two wooden raised beds, uncovered the strawberries, harvested the over-wintering parsnips (they all looked in great shape), emptied one of the compost bins (spreading the compost over several raised beds), and planted potatoes (Yukon Gold and Kennebec), two varieties of snow peas, two rows of lettuce (my favorites: Red Sail and Black-Seeded Simpson), and a row of Early Scarlet Radishes. The spinach seeds sown the first week in March had germinated, the raised bed covered with dozens of tiny spinach plants.
Returning to the Coe Garden, I initially concentrated on spreading wood chips over the garden paths: three pickup loads of chips in three days. The paths in the “G” and “H” beds are now finished, although they periodically require tidying up since the squirrels love digging in those fresh paths. I also cleaned up the viburnum at the east end of the garden. A congregation of leaves had found a winter home in that area, and several volunteer trees (probably hackberry) had emerged amongst the viburnum. Since the fledgling trees were so closely mixed in with the viburnum, it was impossible to dig up all their roots. Some will be reappearing later this summer.
On Friday Todd Tomkins (of TNT Woodworking in Iowa City) delivered the new sign board/communications center to be installed near the NW garden gate. The immediate inspiration for this project was a signboard I saw in London’s Waterlow Park–though the final product is dramatically different from the sign in NW London. As the design evolved, Todd and I exchanged over 25 email messages: he would send me a drawing, I would respond with concerns/suggestions, he would send a new drawing, I would ask further questions, he would offer further responses. The final result is a beautifully crafted cedar box (30" by 36" x 4") with a large plexiglass front. The purpose of the communication center will be to welcome folks to the garden, inform visitors about basic “garden ground rules,” and provide information on the current status of the garden (for example, updates on flowers in bloom). The “center” includes a smaller box where visitors can obtain copies of a garden map and recent issues of The Garden Quarto. Perhaps by the end of this week, the Alumni House Garden Communication Center will be installed and ready for business.
With regard to The Garden Quarto, last Tuesday I delivered to the Copy Center the manuscript for the Spring 2018 issue. Although I was disappointed we didn’t receive any satisfactory student submissions, I feel good about the final product. In addition to publishing more poetry by Ann Struthers, our little publication includes a wonderful Bob Drexler poem evoking the environs around the Silver Star Inn (a B&B near Spring Green, Wisconsin, which we often used for WAC Program retreats), a poem on the arrival of spring by John Logan (a biology major who graduated from Coe in the 1940s and produced over ten books of poetry and prose), and an essay by Jeff Chittick on a bog walk near Coe’s Wilderness Field Station. Jeff (‘12) was a non-trad student whose first class at Coe was my Nature Writing class at the Field Station. After completing a Masters in Professional Communication at the University of Alaska, he now lives in Denver, Colorado, and was willing to spend some time revising this piece first drafted seven years ago. The Spring 2018 issue also includes short passages by Seamus Heaney, Charles Darwin, and Theognis of Megara.
This morning I finished assembling the compost tea brewer, filled the 5 gallon bucket with about 4 gallons of water (that I hope has been successfully de-chlorinated), and added three ingredients that came with the compost tea kit: a mesh bag filled with two cups of a compost mixture, a glob of fishy-smelling fertilizer, and 1 tsp of SoilLife Microbial Inoculant #1. The label indicates that #1 contains Bacillus mycoides, a disease fighting Trichoderma, and a “compliment of NPK+micronutrient mitigating bacteria & fungi.” Once all the ingredients were added, I started up the aerator--comparable to what one would find with a fish tank--and the mixture started bubbling away. Within a couple hours, the greenhouse had acquired a fishy smell, but if this little factory fulfills its promises, the smell will be a minor inconvenience. Once I have used up the fish-based fertilizer, I will likely turn to other fertilizer sources–such as some Buffalo Loam Organic Plant Food, purchased last year, that is reported to be ideally formulated for compost tea.
Another big event for this week should be the delivery tomorrow morning of a new sundial that Cara Briggs Farmer has designed for the garden. This project was also inspired by the February visit to London’s Waterlow Park (see photo at the end of the March 5 Monday Morning Garden Report). When this sundial is fully installed, the gnomon’s shadow will record the passing of the hours by its location across a sequence of small flower beds positioned like segments of a circular pie. The 56" tall steel sundial, with a 7' wide circular base, is designed to fit into a flower bed in front of the gazebo. When I first started working in the garden, this area was an unconstrained wilderness, overrun with thistles, horsetail, more thistles, a few asters, more thistles, some dock, a lot of grass, more thistles, some hyssop, a lot of Queen Anne’s lace, some goldenrod, a couple of ragweed, and more thistles.
While I was often uncertain about how to proceed in other areas of the garden–which often had a significant percentage of flowers and shrubs worth salvaging–this was one area where almost everything could be discarded. And so I dug out and composted the unwanted flora, tilled the soil, removed all the roots I could unearth, tilled in some peat and manure, created a 7' wide circular bed, and planted it with asters, daylilies, ox-eye daisies, and hyssop harvested from other garden beds. In the fall those pioneers were joined by two dozen tulip bulbs and a few ornamental allium. Because this was my first flower bed installation, I felt some remorse this morning as I began transplanting the tulips to an open area in the “G” bed and sending everyone else to a holding area while I decide what to do with them. Although progress can be a cruel business, the area for the new sundial is now raked clean and ready for a new chapter.
While leveling the new sundial bed, I noticed a young lady kneeling in front of the wooden sundial, taking some photos. I walked over and asked if she knew what this thing was. She said “No, I don’t.” Although we had no direct sun to confirm my explanations, I tried as best I could to explain how the shadows created by the four wooden arcs record the time of day and the seasonal solstices and equinoxes. After she had left the garden, I began to imagine the entire garden as a complex sundial, the plants recording the movement of the sun across the sky, the progress of the year through the seasons. One challenge of gardening is to learn how to interpret these daily and annual cycles, a formidable challenge since each turn of the wheel will be unique. Surrounded in the garden by all these organic gyres and ecological connections–of which I have such a limited understanding–I appreciate the sundial as a silent but eloquent anchor, assuring me that within all this flux, the currents of time remain intact, predictable, certain. Given the fact that the garden will soon have four sundials, I apparently need a lot of assurance.
When I arrived this morning at 7:30, the temperature was 26F, and the garden was covered with a thin veneer of ice and snow. Over the weekend several bunches of daffodil buds had opened, including two clumps of the delightful tete-a-tetes in the “I” and “K” beds. This morning all were bent over, faces down. By noon, however, most of the snow was gone (except for lingering pockets in shady areas and nestled among yew branches), and the daffodils had sprung back up, welcoming visitors into the garden.
Although the garden looks much the same as it did under the snow last Monday, a lot has happened in the past seven days. Tuesday and Wednesday were lovely spring days, with sunshine and temperatures into the 50s & 60s. Since the perennial beds don’t necessarily require my attention on such lovely days, I left the garden to its own inclinations and used those hours for working in my vegetable garden allotment, located near Wickiup Hill Learning Center. The soil temperature reached into the 50s, and the moisture content was perfect for tilling. Although by noon on Thursday my vegetable garden efforts were terminated by a cold and windy rain, I had already installed two wooden raised beds, uncovered the strawberries, harvested the over-wintering parsnips (they all looked in great shape), emptied one of the compost bins (spreading the compost over several raised beds), and planted potatoes (Yukon Gold and Kennebec), two varieties of snow peas, two rows of lettuce (my favorites: Red Sail and Black-Seeded Simpson), and a row of Early Scarlet Radishes. The spinach seeds sown the first week in March had germinated, the raised bed covered with dozens of tiny spinach plants.
Returning to the Coe Garden, I initially concentrated on spreading wood chips over the garden paths: three pickup loads of chips in three days. The paths in the “G” and “H” beds are now finished, although they periodically require tidying up since the squirrels love digging in those fresh paths. I also cleaned up the viburnum at the east end of the garden. A congregation of leaves had found a winter home in that area, and several volunteer trees (probably hackberry) had emerged amongst the viburnum. Since the fledgling trees were so closely mixed in with the viburnum, it was impossible to dig up all their roots. Some will be reappearing later this summer.
On Friday Todd Tomkins (of TNT Woodworking in Iowa City) delivered the new sign board/communications center to be installed near the NW garden gate. The immediate inspiration for this project was a signboard I saw in London’s Waterlow Park–though the final product is dramatically different from the sign in NW London. As the design evolved, Todd and I exchanged over 25 email messages: he would send me a drawing, I would respond with concerns/suggestions, he would send a new drawing, I would ask further questions, he would offer further responses. The final result is a beautifully crafted cedar box (30" by 36" x 4") with a large plexiglass front. The purpose of the communication center will be to welcome folks to the garden, inform visitors about basic “garden ground rules,” and provide information on the current status of the garden (for example, updates on flowers in bloom). The “center” includes a smaller box where visitors can obtain copies of a garden map and recent issues of The Garden Quarto. Perhaps by the end of this week, the Alumni House Garden Communication Center will be installed and ready for business.
With regard to The Garden Quarto, last Tuesday I delivered to the Copy Center the manuscript for the Spring 2018 issue. Although I was disappointed we didn’t receive any satisfactory student submissions, I feel good about the final product. In addition to publishing more poetry by Ann Struthers, our little publication includes a wonderful Bob Drexler poem evoking the environs around the Silver Star Inn (a B&B near Spring Green, Wisconsin, which we often used for WAC Program retreats), a poem on the arrival of spring by John Logan (a biology major who graduated from Coe in the 1940s and produced over ten books of poetry and prose), and an essay by Jeff Chittick on a bog walk near Coe’s Wilderness Field Station. Jeff (‘12) was a non-trad student whose first class at Coe was my Nature Writing class at the Field Station. After completing a Masters in Professional Communication at the University of Alaska, he now lives in Denver, Colorado, and was willing to spend some time revising this piece first drafted seven years ago. The Spring 2018 issue also includes short passages by Seamus Heaney, Charles Darwin, and Theognis of Megara.
This morning I finished assembling the compost tea brewer, filled the 5 gallon bucket with about 4 gallons of water (that I hope has been successfully de-chlorinated), and added three ingredients that came with the compost tea kit: a mesh bag filled with two cups of a compost mixture, a glob of fishy-smelling fertilizer, and 1 tsp of SoilLife Microbial Inoculant #1. The label indicates that #1 contains Bacillus mycoides, a disease fighting Trichoderma, and a “compliment of NPK+micronutrient mitigating bacteria & fungi.” Once all the ingredients were added, I started up the aerator--comparable to what one would find with a fish tank--and the mixture started bubbling away. Within a couple hours, the greenhouse had acquired a fishy smell, but if this little factory fulfills its promises, the smell will be a minor inconvenience. Once I have used up the fish-based fertilizer, I will likely turn to other fertilizer sources–such as some Buffalo Loam Organic Plant Food, purchased last year, that is reported to be ideally formulated for compost tea.
Another big event for this week should be the delivery tomorrow morning of a new sundial that Cara Briggs Farmer has designed for the garden. This project was also inspired by the February visit to London’s Waterlow Park (see photo at the end of the March 5 Monday Morning Garden Report). When this sundial is fully installed, the gnomon’s shadow will record the passing of the hours by its location across a sequence of small flower beds positioned like segments of a circular pie. The 56" tall steel sundial, with a 7' wide circular base, is designed to fit into a flower bed in front of the gazebo. When I first started working in the garden, this area was an unconstrained wilderness, overrun with thistles, horsetail, more thistles, a few asters, more thistles, some dock, a lot of grass, more thistles, some hyssop, a lot of Queen Anne’s lace, some goldenrod, a couple of ragweed, and more thistles.
While I was often uncertain about how to proceed in other areas of the garden–which often had a significant percentage of flowers and shrubs worth salvaging–this was one area where almost everything could be discarded. And so I dug out and composted the unwanted flora, tilled the soil, removed all the roots I could unearth, tilled in some peat and manure, created a 7' wide circular bed, and planted it with asters, daylilies, ox-eye daisies, and hyssop harvested from other garden beds. In the fall those pioneers were joined by two dozen tulip bulbs and a few ornamental allium. Because this was my first flower bed installation, I felt some remorse this morning as I began transplanting the tulips to an open area in the “G” bed and sending everyone else to a holding area while I decide what to do with them. Although progress can be a cruel business, the area for the new sundial is now raked clean and ready for a new chapter.
While leveling the new sundial bed, I noticed a young lady kneeling in front of the wooden sundial, taking some photos. I walked over and asked if she knew what this thing was. She said “No, I don’t.” Although we had no direct sun to confirm my explanations, I tried as best I could to explain how the shadows created by the four wooden arcs record the time of day and the seasonal solstices and equinoxes. After she had left the garden, I began to imagine the entire garden as a complex sundial, the plants recording the movement of the sun across the sky, the progress of the year through the seasons. One challenge of gardening is to learn how to interpret these daily and annual cycles, a formidable challenge since each turn of the wheel will be unique. Surrounded in the garden by all these organic gyres and ecological connections–of which I have such a limited understanding–I appreciate the sundial as a silent but eloquent anchor, assuring me that within all this flux, the currents of time remain intact, predictable, certain. Given the fact that the garden will soon have four sundials, I apparently need a lot of assurance.
Monday Morning Report for 9 April 2018
Snow arrived yesterday afternoon about 2:00 pm, and this morning the snow continues to accumulate. Snow on top of the garden fence is at least 3" high. Temperature hovering around 32 degrees. The garden’s red brick patio only has a few snow islands. It won’t take long before the snow has melted on the gravel walkways. But, for the moment, the garden looks primed for Christmas eve. Dramatic contrast with last year. Here’s a garden journal entry for April 12, 2017.
11:45 am; 68F; 45% humidity. Did a quick walk around, counting nine different varieties of daffodils in bloom—some at their max, with many more buds not yet open. The creeping phlox in the rock garden look spectacular: four varieties in bloom, plus another in the “K” bed. Red and yellow tulips planted last fall in “J” have just opened; the tulips in “E” are 2-3 days behind--as is almost everything on the south side. Anemones are in bloom, as are the hellebores under a SE corner flowering crab. All the peonies are up. Several need to be transplanted, especially a large bush interwoven with a tansy in the “D” bed. I dug up the chives in “A1”, split into two clumps, and planted in a raised “E” bed, not far from the thyme I planted last week. Another step in the transformation of those raised beds into herb gardens.
This year, in contrast, no daffodils are yet in bloom (though many have buds that will open once we have a few days of warmer weather), many tulips have not yet emerged (and the ones that have are a couple weeks away from blooming), no anemones have appeared, no hellebores are blooming, the peonies are tiny red spears demurely peeking through the soil, and there has been no planting of anything anywhere. One possible benefit of this late spring is that the garden may be a showier affair for graduation. By graduation weekend last year, most of the daffodils and tulips were finished, as was the flowering crab. This year we have a better chance some star bloomers may be in their prime.
In two conversations the past week, people have suggested I must be getting impatient, waiting for warm weather so I can get back into the garden. Although today’s snow has delayed outdoors work, this snow won’t last long and by Wednesday, I’ll be returning to my outdoor garden tasks. While the spring has been tardy, I remind myself that the winter’s arrival was also delayed–our first hard freeze not coming until November. It feels like the seasons have simply shifted their schedule back by 3-4 weeks. Even with the delay, there are plenty of early-spring-clean-up jobs waiting for me. Here are a few items on this week’s to-do list:
• Finish laying hardwood chips on the two garden paths in the “G” and “H” beds. Spread fresh chips around the patio, the greenhouse, and the garden shed. Our wood chips and mulch come from Ever-Green Nursery, north of Hiawatha. It only takes a minute for their Bobcat scoop to fill my Chevy S-10 with a “yard” of either product. Low bulk prices and very efficient.
• Need to finish vacuuming up leaves caught in the rock and crevice gardens and remove leaves from under the viburnum at the east end of the garden. A month ago I cleaned up the rock and crevice gardens, but they quickly accumulated a new crop of leaves, which have blown in from the campus. I also need to cut back the sedum, moss phlox, and veronica that have over-run the rock garden. The Angelina sedum is a lovely stonecrop with appealing orange tips, unfazed by Zone 5 winter weather. But in the rock and crevice gardens it has been the bull in the china shop. I have completely removed it from the crevice garden. I appreciate the texture and colors it adds to the rock garden, but I need to find a technique for confining this rambunctious soldier to its assigned barracks.
• I’ve left most of the larger, ornamental grasses untrimmed: big bluestem and little bluestem, Sioux Blue Indian grass, river oats, several Pennisetum fountain grasses (including the Karl Foerster), and half-a-dozen different switch grasses and miscanthus. It will probably be just a few days before many start sending up new growth, and the old foliage will need to be cut back. Although these grasses play such an essential role in the appearance and integrity of the winter and early spring garden, it’s time for them to step back and let other plants step forward.
• The weeds and grass are beginning to emerge in the gravel walkways and the lawn. One benefit of the winter months is that the gravel walkways don’t demand much attention. But some plants love that gravel handpan and are already emerging–as are the dandelions, plantain, and other weeds in the lawn.
• Some shrubs need pruning. Need to cut back several red twig dogwood, which notably expanded their territory last year. Also several volunteer trees–perhaps hackberry–which need to be removed from the viburnum in the “G” and “H” beds. The yews all need trimming, but I’ll wait until May for that project.
• Every day I need to check on the plants we have started in the greenhouse. At the moment, we have the following seedlings:
–Tithonia (2 varieties of Mexican sunflowers)
–Amaranth
–Meadow clary
–Little bluestem grass
–Nasturtiums (2 varieties)
–Marigolds (4 varieties)
–Orange cape daisies (5 pots with seeds purchased in 2015, very slow to germinate, but they all came through)
–Coreopsis (3 varieties; almost 100% germination on all seeds)
–Mirabilis jalapa (four o’clocks)
–Dianthus (2 varieties)
–Spotted bee balm (only 1 seed germinated so far)
–Gazanias (30 plants, 6 varieties; almost 100% germination)
–Basil (30 plants, 4 varieties, 100% germination)
–Garlic chives
–Calendula
–Sweet peas (30 pots)
–Bottle grass
–Little bluestem
• And, to date, some failures. The following seeds–all planted at least 10 days ago–have not yet produced any seedlings: petunias, foxglove, Maltese cross, cleome, century plants (old seeds), and blue bells browallia--a South American, tropical plant which I had read is supposed to be easy to raise from seed.
• We still have straw mulch covering crocosima, agapanthus, buddleia, and mock orange. I’ll remove the straw once the weather forecast indicates we are likely to enjoy a sequence of nights without unseasonably low temperatures.
Snow arrived yesterday afternoon about 2:00 pm, and this morning the snow continues to accumulate. Snow on top of the garden fence is at least 3" high. Temperature hovering around 32 degrees. The garden’s red brick patio only has a few snow islands. It won’t take long before the snow has melted on the gravel walkways. But, for the moment, the garden looks primed for Christmas eve. Dramatic contrast with last year. Here’s a garden journal entry for April 12, 2017.
11:45 am; 68F; 45% humidity. Did a quick walk around, counting nine different varieties of daffodils in bloom—some at their max, with many more buds not yet open. The creeping phlox in the rock garden look spectacular: four varieties in bloom, plus another in the “K” bed. Red and yellow tulips planted last fall in “J” have just opened; the tulips in “E” are 2-3 days behind--as is almost everything on the south side. Anemones are in bloom, as are the hellebores under a SE corner flowering crab. All the peonies are up. Several need to be transplanted, especially a large bush interwoven with a tansy in the “D” bed. I dug up the chives in “A1”, split into two clumps, and planted in a raised “E” bed, not far from the thyme I planted last week. Another step in the transformation of those raised beds into herb gardens.
This year, in contrast, no daffodils are yet in bloom (though many have buds that will open once we have a few days of warmer weather), many tulips have not yet emerged (and the ones that have are a couple weeks away from blooming), no anemones have appeared, no hellebores are blooming, the peonies are tiny red spears demurely peeking through the soil, and there has been no planting of anything anywhere. One possible benefit of this late spring is that the garden may be a showier affair for graduation. By graduation weekend last year, most of the daffodils and tulips were finished, as was the flowering crab. This year we have a better chance some star bloomers may be in their prime.
In two conversations the past week, people have suggested I must be getting impatient, waiting for warm weather so I can get back into the garden. Although today’s snow has delayed outdoors work, this snow won’t last long and by Wednesday, I’ll be returning to my outdoor garden tasks. While the spring has been tardy, I remind myself that the winter’s arrival was also delayed–our first hard freeze not coming until November. It feels like the seasons have simply shifted their schedule back by 3-4 weeks. Even with the delay, there are plenty of early-spring-clean-up jobs waiting for me. Here are a few items on this week’s to-do list:
• Finish laying hardwood chips on the two garden paths in the “G” and “H” beds. Spread fresh chips around the patio, the greenhouse, and the garden shed. Our wood chips and mulch come from Ever-Green Nursery, north of Hiawatha. It only takes a minute for their Bobcat scoop to fill my Chevy S-10 with a “yard” of either product. Low bulk prices and very efficient.
• Need to finish vacuuming up leaves caught in the rock and crevice gardens and remove leaves from under the viburnum at the east end of the garden. A month ago I cleaned up the rock and crevice gardens, but they quickly accumulated a new crop of leaves, which have blown in from the campus. I also need to cut back the sedum, moss phlox, and veronica that have over-run the rock garden. The Angelina sedum is a lovely stonecrop with appealing orange tips, unfazed by Zone 5 winter weather. But in the rock and crevice gardens it has been the bull in the china shop. I have completely removed it from the crevice garden. I appreciate the texture and colors it adds to the rock garden, but I need to find a technique for confining this rambunctious soldier to its assigned barracks.
• I’ve left most of the larger, ornamental grasses untrimmed: big bluestem and little bluestem, Sioux Blue Indian grass, river oats, several Pennisetum fountain grasses (including the Karl Foerster), and half-a-dozen different switch grasses and miscanthus. It will probably be just a few days before many start sending up new growth, and the old foliage will need to be cut back. Although these grasses play such an essential role in the appearance and integrity of the winter and early spring garden, it’s time for them to step back and let other plants step forward.
• The weeds and grass are beginning to emerge in the gravel walkways and the lawn. One benefit of the winter months is that the gravel walkways don’t demand much attention. But some plants love that gravel handpan and are already emerging–as are the dandelions, plantain, and other weeds in the lawn.
• Some shrubs need pruning. Need to cut back several red twig dogwood, which notably expanded their territory last year. Also several volunteer trees–perhaps hackberry–which need to be removed from the viburnum in the “G” and “H” beds. The yews all need trimming, but I’ll wait until May for that project.
• Every day I need to check on the plants we have started in the greenhouse. At the moment, we have the following seedlings:
–Tithonia (2 varieties of Mexican sunflowers)
–Amaranth
–Meadow clary
–Little bluestem grass
–Nasturtiums (2 varieties)
–Marigolds (4 varieties)
–Orange cape daisies (5 pots with seeds purchased in 2015, very slow to germinate, but they all came through)
–Coreopsis (3 varieties; almost 100% germination on all seeds)
–Mirabilis jalapa (four o’clocks)
–Dianthus (2 varieties)
–Spotted bee balm (only 1 seed germinated so far)
–Gazanias (30 plants, 6 varieties; almost 100% germination)
–Basil (30 plants, 4 varieties, 100% germination)
–Garlic chives
–Calendula
–Sweet peas (30 pots)
–Bottle grass
–Little bluestem
• And, to date, some failures. The following seeds–all planted at least 10 days ago–have not yet produced any seedlings: petunias, foxglove, Maltese cross, cleome, century plants (old seeds), and blue bells browallia--a South American, tropical plant which I had read is supposed to be easy to raise from seed.
• We still have straw mulch covering crocosima, agapanthus, buddleia, and mock orange. I’ll remove the straw once the weather forecast indicates we are likely to enjoy a sequence of nights without unseasonably low temperatures.
Monday Morning Garden Report: 2 April 2018
Arrived at the garden about 8:45 am. The calendar indicates it is April 2, but the weather feels more like February 2: overcast, temp at 28F after an overnight dip into the low 20s. Springtime is on hold and weather forecasters forecast no significant improvement for the next week. After a quick inspection of the greenhouse and the newly arrived red wigglers, I grabbed my Canon PowerShot, unlocked the SW garden gate, and began a morning inspection of the garden. My primary concern was detecting any notable harm caused by the recent low temps. An initial survey indicated everyone was doing okay. The daffodils, which have sent up many new flower buds in the past week, all looked in fine shape. The same with tulips, spring snowflakes (Leucojum vernum), peonies, spurge, daylilies, daisies, hellebores, flag iris, forsythia, crocus (a slim remnant of the hundred or more crocus planted in the fall, 2014), mint family members (the nepetas and hyssops–the latter recognizable by their lovely, textured, burgundy foliage), the aquilegia (small mounds of dusky, red-wine tinted leaves), lupine, several varieties of allium, the early spring-flowering viburnum. Everybody looked hunky-dory, so far undaunted by this lingering winter.
One possible loss is the Helene von Stein Lamb’s Ear I planted in 2014. Earlier this spring, after noticing several velvety-green leaves, I trimmed away some of the dead, gray foliage. Today, however, the green leaves were gone, and I could find no evidence of new growth. Since this is a Zone 4 plant, I doubt the low temperatures have been a problem. This Stachys, however, depends on good drainage, and perhaps problems occurred due to the wet spring soil combined with the temperatures moving back and forth across the freezing mark. This has been one of the garden’s premier front-of-border plants, which led me to plant three more of this “Big Ears” cultivar two years ago. If it does not survive, later this spring I will divide up the other three clumps, add some sand and fresh compost to the soil, and replant them. Just a couple weeks ago, I was reading in Beth Chatto’s Garden Notebook her description of attending the 80th birthday party for the Bavarian Countess Helene von Stein, an eminent horticulturalist for whom this Stachys cultivar was named. It does not flower (at least it has not done so in the Coe garden), but it has marvelous foliage.
After a half-dozen photos, a flashing red signal indicated the camera battery was demanding to be recharged. Back in the garden shed, I removed the battery charger from the desk and got the rehabilitation process started. Before returning to the cold, I turned my attention to our compost tea brewing operation. The instructions emphasized the importance of using water free of chlorine (or chloramine). One goal of the compost tea is to create a brew rich in micro-organisms, some of which the chlorine may try to eradicate. I had purchased a garden hose filter distributed by a company claiming it would remove the chloramine. But when I checked the filtered water this morning, the testing tablet turned pink, indicating the chlorine was still there. So I walked to Hy-Vee, purchased two lemons, walked back to the garden shed, sliced off a segment of lemon, and put the segment in my gallon jug of water. When I tested the water again, the test tablet did not turn the water pink. According to a chemist friend of mine, assuming I have accurately resurrected his explanation, the ascorbic acid in the lemon should bond with the chlorine and produces a chloride, thus removing the chlorine as an active micro-organism killer.
I admit I’m not yet convinced this compost tea project is worth the effort. I have a strong faith in the eventual benefits of the earthworm farm, but the benefits of compost tea appear more iffy. Prior to purchasing any equipment, I listened to many arguments of vigorous proponents and equally vigorous nay-sayers. Whom do you trust? My tipping point was reading Fight Like the Flowers by Lawrence Hills, an eloquent British advocate for the horticultural benefits of compost tea made with comfrey foliage. I have a large patch of comfrey in my backyard, and I was attracted to the idea of finding a use for its prolific leaves. I decided that setting up a brewery was worth the time and expenses. It’s not likely the tea will do any harm, and there’s always a chance it might help. This summer I will be–for the first time–responsible for maintenance of the garden’s lawn, and I would like to find ways to enrich the soil without depending on any synthetic fertilizers, herbicides, or pesticides. Using compost tea seemed a reasonable option.
However the compost tea experiment works out, the new greenhouse has certainly fulfilled my heart’s expectations. While the plexiglass ceiling needs some realignment (several leaks in the roof, caused by ice working its way into the seams and then melting), the greenhouse has otherwise worked beautifully. Under the grow lights, we now have four flats with seedlings, two flats with seeds sown this weekend, and five more flats to be sown this coming week. While visiting Malta in February, I fell in love with their gazanias, and in March I ordered several varieties of gazania seeds from Swallowtail Gardens in California. Last Tuesday Gabe planted a flat of gazanias (including an old packet of seeds purchased in 2015). Because the seeds prefer to germinate in the dark, we covered the tray with several pages of a wet New York Times. On Sunday morning I peaked under the newspaper and saw nothing new, but in the evening I looked again and was surprised to discover nearly all the seed block cubes had small, yellow seedlings. In pulling off the newspaper, I inadvertently pulled up several seedlings stuck to the newspaper, but we still have 25 baby gazanias, including one from a 2015 seed. After their transferral to flower pots, they should make a nice addition to the summer garden.
The garden’s newest major acquisition is a compost bin I constructed in the NE corner. The four older compost bins are reserved for material that has been shredded to accelerate the composting. All the material waiting to be shredded has been piled up under a flowering crab, waiting for its surgery. After three years with this system, it seemed time to construct a holding pen for this unprocessed collection, making the operation appear more orderly. On Saturday I brought to the garden twenty 4' and 6' cedar boards from Menards and six 6' tall, 4" square posts from my garden shed at home. Despite my limited carpentry skills, the new compost bin looks okay and seems to be reasonably stable. Although the new cedar boards are still a bit too eager to shine, they will soon tone down and blend in with the other compost bins and the gazebo, all constructed of cedar. It will also help when the red twig dogwood’s foliage obscures the lower half of our new holding cell.
The bin is higher than I wanted, but to ensure it was large enough to handle next fall’s volume of material, it needed a higher profile than the smaller bins. Perhaps we’ll plant some vines to climb up the sides of the bin that face toward the garden–or plant evergreen bushes on those two sides. In that space has been a tall ornamental grass (some kind of miscanthus) which I dumped there four years ago. This grass had been growing up through the yews in the NW corner of the garden quad. Somehow those mangled, chopped up roots took hold, creating a hardy new colony. The root system of this ornamental grass is incredibly dense, like cutting through hardened tree roots. I suspect I did not get them all removed, and later this summer the miscanthus will re-emerge inside the new compost bin. I also dug up several large clumps of Stella D’oro daylilies that I had also tossed in the same area. Although these daylilies never produced many blooms (perhaps because of their location in the shade of the flowering crab), they have definitely spread. Since we already have more Stellas than we need, I will give these away later this spring.
An April 2 photo: two buds on an early flowering and extraordinarily fragrant viburnum.
Arrived at the garden about 8:45 am. The calendar indicates it is April 2, but the weather feels more like February 2: overcast, temp at 28F after an overnight dip into the low 20s. Springtime is on hold and weather forecasters forecast no significant improvement for the next week. After a quick inspection of the greenhouse and the newly arrived red wigglers, I grabbed my Canon PowerShot, unlocked the SW garden gate, and began a morning inspection of the garden. My primary concern was detecting any notable harm caused by the recent low temps. An initial survey indicated everyone was doing okay. The daffodils, which have sent up many new flower buds in the past week, all looked in fine shape. The same with tulips, spring snowflakes (Leucojum vernum), peonies, spurge, daylilies, daisies, hellebores, flag iris, forsythia, crocus (a slim remnant of the hundred or more crocus planted in the fall, 2014), mint family members (the nepetas and hyssops–the latter recognizable by their lovely, textured, burgundy foliage), the aquilegia (small mounds of dusky, red-wine tinted leaves), lupine, several varieties of allium, the early spring-flowering viburnum. Everybody looked hunky-dory, so far undaunted by this lingering winter.
One possible loss is the Helene von Stein Lamb’s Ear I planted in 2014. Earlier this spring, after noticing several velvety-green leaves, I trimmed away some of the dead, gray foliage. Today, however, the green leaves were gone, and I could find no evidence of new growth. Since this is a Zone 4 plant, I doubt the low temperatures have been a problem. This Stachys, however, depends on good drainage, and perhaps problems occurred due to the wet spring soil combined with the temperatures moving back and forth across the freezing mark. This has been one of the garden’s premier front-of-border plants, which led me to plant three more of this “Big Ears” cultivar two years ago. If it does not survive, later this spring I will divide up the other three clumps, add some sand and fresh compost to the soil, and replant them. Just a couple weeks ago, I was reading in Beth Chatto’s Garden Notebook her description of attending the 80th birthday party for the Bavarian Countess Helene von Stein, an eminent horticulturalist for whom this Stachys cultivar was named. It does not flower (at least it has not done so in the Coe garden), but it has marvelous foliage.
After a half-dozen photos, a flashing red signal indicated the camera battery was demanding to be recharged. Back in the garden shed, I removed the battery charger from the desk and got the rehabilitation process started. Before returning to the cold, I turned my attention to our compost tea brewing operation. The instructions emphasized the importance of using water free of chlorine (or chloramine). One goal of the compost tea is to create a brew rich in micro-organisms, some of which the chlorine may try to eradicate. I had purchased a garden hose filter distributed by a company claiming it would remove the chloramine. But when I checked the filtered water this morning, the testing tablet turned pink, indicating the chlorine was still there. So I walked to Hy-Vee, purchased two lemons, walked back to the garden shed, sliced off a segment of lemon, and put the segment in my gallon jug of water. When I tested the water again, the test tablet did not turn the water pink. According to a chemist friend of mine, assuming I have accurately resurrected his explanation, the ascorbic acid in the lemon should bond with the chlorine and produces a chloride, thus removing the chlorine as an active micro-organism killer.
I admit I’m not yet convinced this compost tea project is worth the effort. I have a strong faith in the eventual benefits of the earthworm farm, but the benefits of compost tea appear more iffy. Prior to purchasing any equipment, I listened to many arguments of vigorous proponents and equally vigorous nay-sayers. Whom do you trust? My tipping point was reading Fight Like the Flowers by Lawrence Hills, an eloquent British advocate for the horticultural benefits of compost tea made with comfrey foliage. I have a large patch of comfrey in my backyard, and I was attracted to the idea of finding a use for its prolific leaves. I decided that setting up a brewery was worth the time and expenses. It’s not likely the tea will do any harm, and there’s always a chance it might help. This summer I will be–for the first time–responsible for maintenance of the garden’s lawn, and I would like to find ways to enrich the soil without depending on any synthetic fertilizers, herbicides, or pesticides. Using compost tea seemed a reasonable option.
However the compost tea experiment works out, the new greenhouse has certainly fulfilled my heart’s expectations. While the plexiglass ceiling needs some realignment (several leaks in the roof, caused by ice working its way into the seams and then melting), the greenhouse has otherwise worked beautifully. Under the grow lights, we now have four flats with seedlings, two flats with seeds sown this weekend, and five more flats to be sown this coming week. While visiting Malta in February, I fell in love with their gazanias, and in March I ordered several varieties of gazania seeds from Swallowtail Gardens in California. Last Tuesday Gabe planted a flat of gazanias (including an old packet of seeds purchased in 2015). Because the seeds prefer to germinate in the dark, we covered the tray with several pages of a wet New York Times. On Sunday morning I peaked under the newspaper and saw nothing new, but in the evening I looked again and was surprised to discover nearly all the seed block cubes had small, yellow seedlings. In pulling off the newspaper, I inadvertently pulled up several seedlings stuck to the newspaper, but we still have 25 baby gazanias, including one from a 2015 seed. After their transferral to flower pots, they should make a nice addition to the summer garden.
The garden’s newest major acquisition is a compost bin I constructed in the NE corner. The four older compost bins are reserved for material that has been shredded to accelerate the composting. All the material waiting to be shredded has been piled up under a flowering crab, waiting for its surgery. After three years with this system, it seemed time to construct a holding pen for this unprocessed collection, making the operation appear more orderly. On Saturday I brought to the garden twenty 4' and 6' cedar boards from Menards and six 6' tall, 4" square posts from my garden shed at home. Despite my limited carpentry skills, the new compost bin looks okay and seems to be reasonably stable. Although the new cedar boards are still a bit too eager to shine, they will soon tone down and blend in with the other compost bins and the gazebo, all constructed of cedar. It will also help when the red twig dogwood’s foliage obscures the lower half of our new holding cell.
The bin is higher than I wanted, but to ensure it was large enough to handle next fall’s volume of material, it needed a higher profile than the smaller bins. Perhaps we’ll plant some vines to climb up the sides of the bin that face toward the garden–or plant evergreen bushes on those two sides. In that space has been a tall ornamental grass (some kind of miscanthus) which I dumped there four years ago. This grass had been growing up through the yews in the NW corner of the garden quad. Somehow those mangled, chopped up roots took hold, creating a hardy new colony. The root system of this ornamental grass is incredibly dense, like cutting through hardened tree roots. I suspect I did not get them all removed, and later this summer the miscanthus will re-emerge inside the new compost bin. I also dug up several large clumps of Stella D’oro daylilies that I had also tossed in the same area. Although these daylilies never produced many blooms (perhaps because of their location in the shade of the flowering crab), they have definitely spread. Since we already have more Stellas than we need, I will give these away later this spring.
An April 2 photo: two buds on an early flowering and extraordinarily fragrant viburnum.
Monday Morning Garden Report: 19 March 2018
Tomorrow’s forecast is for freezing rain and snow, but today’s weather report told us to look for sunshine, light breeze, temp into the upper 40s or low 50s. Shortly after I arrived at the garden, Cara appeared and within a few minutes had re-installed the wooden sundial. She had applied a new coat of epoxy, followed by a layer of polyurethane. The golden wood looked beautiful in the early morning sunshine. The gnomon recorded the time perfectly (8:40 am, God’s time, ignoring daylight saving time) and the wooden arc for recording the seasons was dead center on the line for the equinox (first day of spring being tomorrow). As we were admiring her handiwork, Cara mentioned there are no eastern Iowa sundials registered with the North American Sundial Society. We need to get that changed.
My next task was rearranging seed cubes in the greenhouse, putting cubes with seedlings into 3-4" plastic pots, and dumping out the seed starter cubes where no seeds had germinated. The following seedlings received new homes:
• 2 Chinese Amaranth (leaves are edible, like spinach, but I intend to grow these as ornamentals in the herb garden; we had 100% germination in 5 cubes but 3 plants died shortly after germination–perhaps from insufficient moisture)
• 2 Garlic Chives (for the herb garden)
• 5 Clove Pinks (Dianthus caryophyllus; the name “pinks” refers to the notched edges of the leaves–derived from “pynken,” an Old English word for a kind of pinking shears–and does not indicate the color of the blooms)
• 2 Meadow Clary (Salvia pratensis; not a native salvia but has become widely naturalized; I’m interested in using these as a source for cut flowers; the name “clary” comes from “clear-eyed” and refers to the medicinal use of the plant for reducing redness in the eyes)
• 3 ‘Mini Blue’ Lavender (a miniature English lavender; when it goes outdoors in May it should be planted where it will receive plenty of sunshine, perhaps at the back of the rock or crevice gardens)
• 4 Nepitella (named Melissa nepeta by Carl Linnaeus in the 18th century; has since also been known as Thymus, Satureja, Calamintha, and Clinopodium nepeta; this is my first experience with lesser catmint; its fragrance is reported to be a mix of mint and oregano)
All of these seeds were purchased in 2015 or 2016, so I was pleased we had decent germination rates–though we did have 3 sets of seeds where we struck out: dwarf larkspur, lead plant, and cowslip. This is the third consecutive year where none of the cowslip I’ve planted have germinated.
After sending an email to faculty, staff, and students with an update on the garden’s spring schedule, a photo of the re-installed sundial, and an invitation to submit manuscripts for the next issue of The Garden Quarto, I spent the rest of the day reducing the size of the unprocessed compost pile in the NE corner of the garden. After failing to get the gas-powered shredder started, I brought from home my electric chipper/shredder. The electric machine is much smaller and slower, but it’s also lighter, easier to maneuver, and starts with a simple press of a button. Three hours of shredding made a sizable dent in the 5' tall pile.
The photo below shows Gabriel, my garden assistant, on Tuesday afternoon shredding plants stored in the big compost pile. By the end of the day, we had our four compost bins--plus a large garbage can--all filled to the brim. This summer we should have a substantial amount of fresh humus ready for enriching the lawn and flower beds.
Tomorrow’s forecast is for freezing rain and snow, but today’s weather report told us to look for sunshine, light breeze, temp into the upper 40s or low 50s. Shortly after I arrived at the garden, Cara appeared and within a few minutes had re-installed the wooden sundial. She had applied a new coat of epoxy, followed by a layer of polyurethane. The golden wood looked beautiful in the early morning sunshine. The gnomon recorded the time perfectly (8:40 am, God’s time, ignoring daylight saving time) and the wooden arc for recording the seasons was dead center on the line for the equinox (first day of spring being tomorrow). As we were admiring her handiwork, Cara mentioned there are no eastern Iowa sundials registered with the North American Sundial Society. We need to get that changed.
My next task was rearranging seed cubes in the greenhouse, putting cubes with seedlings into 3-4" plastic pots, and dumping out the seed starter cubes where no seeds had germinated. The following seedlings received new homes:
• 2 Chinese Amaranth (leaves are edible, like spinach, but I intend to grow these as ornamentals in the herb garden; we had 100% germination in 5 cubes but 3 plants died shortly after germination–perhaps from insufficient moisture)
• 2 Garlic Chives (for the herb garden)
• 5 Clove Pinks (Dianthus caryophyllus; the name “pinks” refers to the notched edges of the leaves–derived from “pynken,” an Old English word for a kind of pinking shears–and does not indicate the color of the blooms)
• 2 Meadow Clary (Salvia pratensis; not a native salvia but has become widely naturalized; I’m interested in using these as a source for cut flowers; the name “clary” comes from “clear-eyed” and refers to the medicinal use of the plant for reducing redness in the eyes)
• 3 ‘Mini Blue’ Lavender (a miniature English lavender; when it goes outdoors in May it should be planted where it will receive plenty of sunshine, perhaps at the back of the rock or crevice gardens)
• 4 Nepitella (named Melissa nepeta by Carl Linnaeus in the 18th century; has since also been known as Thymus, Satureja, Calamintha, and Clinopodium nepeta; this is my first experience with lesser catmint; its fragrance is reported to be a mix of mint and oregano)
All of these seeds were purchased in 2015 or 2016, so I was pleased we had decent germination rates–though we did have 3 sets of seeds where we struck out: dwarf larkspur, lead plant, and cowslip. This is the third consecutive year where none of the cowslip I’ve planted have germinated.
After sending an email to faculty, staff, and students with an update on the garden’s spring schedule, a photo of the re-installed sundial, and an invitation to submit manuscripts for the next issue of The Garden Quarto, I spent the rest of the day reducing the size of the unprocessed compost pile in the NE corner of the garden. After failing to get the gas-powered shredder started, I brought from home my electric chipper/shredder. The electric machine is much smaller and slower, but it’s also lighter, easier to maneuver, and starts with a simple press of a button. Three hours of shredding made a sizable dent in the 5' tall pile.
The photo below shows Gabriel, my garden assistant, on Tuesday afternoon shredding plants stored in the big compost pile. By the end of the day, we had our four compost bins--plus a large garbage can--all filled to the brim. This summer we should have a substantial amount of fresh humus ready for enriching the lawn and flower beds.
Monday Morning Garden Report: 12 March 2018
It was a beautiful late winter day: sunny, low 40s temp. It felt cooler in the northerly breeze, but my Carhart hoodie provided the perfect protection. Since this morning was the first day of Coe’s spring term, the garden was to be open for visitors, and my first task was unlocking the NW garden gate, which had probably not been opened since December. The scream of the iron hinges sent me back to the garden shed to get my WD40. When I returned, I discovered a broken gate hinge, the gate now hanging on the other hinge. [Note: Tuesday morning, Lee from Physical Plant arrived, and by the afternoon the gate had new hinges and a new, much friendlier latch. Real progress.]
Knowing repairs to the garden gate were well beyond my skill, I concentrated on my original plan for the day: cleaning up the “C” bed in front of the patio and the rock and crevice gardens north of the patio. I brought out my hedge shears (purchased at Ace last summer when I “misplaced” my old pair), a small hand trimmer (which I never used), a spring rake, and a collapsible kangaroo container for collecting my harvest.
The first plants I tackled were the Siberian iris, which are much easier to cut back in the spring than in the fall when the moist leaves resent any trimming. I love the long, thin, russet-brown leaves during the winter–often reminding me of salt-water marsh grass. By March, however, the iris foliage has been beaten down by the ice and snow, and I’m prepared to put them out of their misery. Because many lie so close to the ground, it’s always hard to cut all of them, and they do not like to be yanked from their home base. When I’m finished, there is a series of freshly cropped clumps of reddish foliage, with occasional green sprouts confirming the iris have survived another winter.
Although last fall I cut back the yarrow, so they could enter the winter season with trim haircuts, all their outer foliage is now gray and weather-beaten. This morning I cut them back several more inches, until my shears reached the areas where emerging green leaves were readily apparent. In the process I removed several older stems and pulled up whatever chunks of grass (and attached rhizomes) I could find. The battle with this resilient grass is an ongoing battle, but I periodically have the illusion I’m making progress.
Several times when sweeping up the yarrow foliage, I pressed my nose into the leaves, thinking these Achillea should be more aromatic than they are. But I am consistently disappointed. This is not the case with the remaining sweet Annie, which had seeded themselves between the gravel walkway and the flower bed. Their endearing redolence remains remarkably enduring, a distinct echo of the fragrant gifts these annuals offer in the fall. They remind me how much I fail to see when I only rely on my eyes. One of my goals this summer is to be more determined in assessing the smells of everything growing in the garden, both flowers and foliage. There must be other jewels I’m missing because of my failure to kneel down and use my nose.
Other plants I cut back in the “C” bed included all the showy stonecrop, cranesbill, Husker red penstemons, spurge, and coreopsis. I find the stonecrop intriguing because there are two varieties that have similar silhouettes, but their stems survive the winter in quite different conditions. The stems of the tall stonecrop in the “C” bed turn white in the fall, and as the winter progresses the hollow stems become softer and less resilient to ice and snow. By March, most of them are either lying prone on the ground or tilting at precarious angles. They offer no resistance to my shears. Across the path in the “B” bed is a clump of a different cultivar: in basic profile they appear virtually identical, but the “B” team stonecrop’s 2' tall greyish brown stems are still erect, unbowed by three months of an Iowa winter. All these stonecrop were in the garden when I arrived in 2014, and I don’t know their history. Perhaps this summer I can be more attentive and try to determine their specific identities.
I must admit it’s more fun–and more challenging–pruning the plants in the crevice and rock gardens. After vacuuming up the oak leaves and depositing them in a compost bin, I began cutting back a dozen or so different species. The trimming was a challenge because these plants–dominated by the creeping sedum and moss phlox–tend to sprawl, and it can be difficult to determine how much of the plants should be salvaged. Several of the sedum varieties spawn new clones as their stems spread across the bed, periodically creating a new set of roots. Later this spring I’ll dig up some of these youngsters and put them in pots to give away, but this morning, I’m strictly in the kill mode. It’s more fun cutting back the thyme because of their wonderful aroma. While pruning the largest German thyme, I was pleased to discover hiding under its foliage our lone Arabis caucasica (‘Lotti’ white rock cress). Last spring it produced some radiant, gently fragrant, snow-white flowers, and I’m thinking it would make sense to replace some of the more aggressive sedums with this ever-green rock cress. It seems ideally suited for this location.
Another survivor–this one found under the collapsed foliage of a volunteer cranesbill–is our only Lewisa x longipetala (Little Peach Bitterroot). I’m attracted to the Lewisas because they are North American natives, a genus “discovered” by Meriwether Lewis on Lolo Creek in 1806. The Native American word for the genus was “bitterroot” (a name also used for Lolo Creek’s mountain range). Our ‘Little Peach’ is actually a hybrid, perhaps an L. longipetala crossed with an L. cotyledon. Last summer it produced surprisingly large apricot/yellow blossoms in June and July. But then it dried up, and I had doubts it would survive the August heat and drought. These Lewisias thrive in conditions with year-around snow, and it seems to have been revived by our winter weather. I may try planting more Lewisias in spots in the crevice garden where these bitterroots could get more shade and protection from the summer heat.
While trimming back a hen and chicks sedum, I was surprised by the appearance of my first “bee” of the spring season: a yellow jacket (see photo at the end of this report). The pattern of the yellow and black stripes with the black dots on the abdomen lead me to think this is a female eastern yellow jacket, but whether it is an eastern or western critter, I was thankful the cold temperatures had left her lethargic and non-aggressive. I’ve read that yellow jackets feed on various insects that can be harmful in an ornamental flower garden, and so I hesitantly chose not to interfere with her nesting plans, but I may regret my decision later this summer if I–or some visitor to the garden–is stung by any of her progeny. It’s been many years since I’ve been attacked by a yellow jacket, and I would prefer not to experience any comparable encounters in 2018.
The garden did have a much friendlier visitor this morning, Cara Farmer, the sculptor responsible for several notable additions to the garden the past year, including the two large metal spheres, Ringo and Sisyphus. This morning she took back to her shop the sundial she designed–which needed some minor epoxy upkeep. We also talked about the possibility of her designing, constructing, and installing a new sundial in front of the gazebo. After measuring the space and discussing the sundial’s profile, she was on her way, promising to send me a proposal later this week. Meanwhile, I returned to the rock and crevice gardens, trying to groom them for the return of spring--while also trying to avoid further interactions with one female yellow jacket.
It was a beautiful late winter day: sunny, low 40s temp. It felt cooler in the northerly breeze, but my Carhart hoodie provided the perfect protection. Since this morning was the first day of Coe’s spring term, the garden was to be open for visitors, and my first task was unlocking the NW garden gate, which had probably not been opened since December. The scream of the iron hinges sent me back to the garden shed to get my WD40. When I returned, I discovered a broken gate hinge, the gate now hanging on the other hinge. [Note: Tuesday morning, Lee from Physical Plant arrived, and by the afternoon the gate had new hinges and a new, much friendlier latch. Real progress.]
Knowing repairs to the garden gate were well beyond my skill, I concentrated on my original plan for the day: cleaning up the “C” bed in front of the patio and the rock and crevice gardens north of the patio. I brought out my hedge shears (purchased at Ace last summer when I “misplaced” my old pair), a small hand trimmer (which I never used), a spring rake, and a collapsible kangaroo container for collecting my harvest.
The first plants I tackled were the Siberian iris, which are much easier to cut back in the spring than in the fall when the moist leaves resent any trimming. I love the long, thin, russet-brown leaves during the winter–often reminding me of salt-water marsh grass. By March, however, the iris foliage has been beaten down by the ice and snow, and I’m prepared to put them out of their misery. Because many lie so close to the ground, it’s always hard to cut all of them, and they do not like to be yanked from their home base. When I’m finished, there is a series of freshly cropped clumps of reddish foliage, with occasional green sprouts confirming the iris have survived another winter.
Although last fall I cut back the yarrow, so they could enter the winter season with trim haircuts, all their outer foliage is now gray and weather-beaten. This morning I cut them back several more inches, until my shears reached the areas where emerging green leaves were readily apparent. In the process I removed several older stems and pulled up whatever chunks of grass (and attached rhizomes) I could find. The battle with this resilient grass is an ongoing battle, but I periodically have the illusion I’m making progress.
Several times when sweeping up the yarrow foliage, I pressed my nose into the leaves, thinking these Achillea should be more aromatic than they are. But I am consistently disappointed. This is not the case with the remaining sweet Annie, which had seeded themselves between the gravel walkway and the flower bed. Their endearing redolence remains remarkably enduring, a distinct echo of the fragrant gifts these annuals offer in the fall. They remind me how much I fail to see when I only rely on my eyes. One of my goals this summer is to be more determined in assessing the smells of everything growing in the garden, both flowers and foliage. There must be other jewels I’m missing because of my failure to kneel down and use my nose.
Other plants I cut back in the “C” bed included all the showy stonecrop, cranesbill, Husker red penstemons, spurge, and coreopsis. I find the stonecrop intriguing because there are two varieties that have similar silhouettes, but their stems survive the winter in quite different conditions. The stems of the tall stonecrop in the “C” bed turn white in the fall, and as the winter progresses the hollow stems become softer and less resilient to ice and snow. By March, most of them are either lying prone on the ground or tilting at precarious angles. They offer no resistance to my shears. Across the path in the “B” bed is a clump of a different cultivar: in basic profile they appear virtually identical, but the “B” team stonecrop’s 2' tall greyish brown stems are still erect, unbowed by three months of an Iowa winter. All these stonecrop were in the garden when I arrived in 2014, and I don’t know their history. Perhaps this summer I can be more attentive and try to determine their specific identities.
I must admit it’s more fun–and more challenging–pruning the plants in the crevice and rock gardens. After vacuuming up the oak leaves and depositing them in a compost bin, I began cutting back a dozen or so different species. The trimming was a challenge because these plants–dominated by the creeping sedum and moss phlox–tend to sprawl, and it can be difficult to determine how much of the plants should be salvaged. Several of the sedum varieties spawn new clones as their stems spread across the bed, periodically creating a new set of roots. Later this spring I’ll dig up some of these youngsters and put them in pots to give away, but this morning, I’m strictly in the kill mode. It’s more fun cutting back the thyme because of their wonderful aroma. While pruning the largest German thyme, I was pleased to discover hiding under its foliage our lone Arabis caucasica (‘Lotti’ white rock cress). Last spring it produced some radiant, gently fragrant, snow-white flowers, and I’m thinking it would make sense to replace some of the more aggressive sedums with this ever-green rock cress. It seems ideally suited for this location.
Another survivor–this one found under the collapsed foliage of a volunteer cranesbill–is our only Lewisa x longipetala (Little Peach Bitterroot). I’m attracted to the Lewisas because they are North American natives, a genus “discovered” by Meriwether Lewis on Lolo Creek in 1806. The Native American word for the genus was “bitterroot” (a name also used for Lolo Creek’s mountain range). Our ‘Little Peach’ is actually a hybrid, perhaps an L. longipetala crossed with an L. cotyledon. Last summer it produced surprisingly large apricot/yellow blossoms in June and July. But then it dried up, and I had doubts it would survive the August heat and drought. These Lewisias thrive in conditions with year-around snow, and it seems to have been revived by our winter weather. I may try planting more Lewisias in spots in the crevice garden where these bitterroots could get more shade and protection from the summer heat.
While trimming back a hen and chicks sedum, I was surprised by the appearance of my first “bee” of the spring season: a yellow jacket (see photo at the end of this report). The pattern of the yellow and black stripes with the black dots on the abdomen lead me to think this is a female eastern yellow jacket, but whether it is an eastern or western critter, I was thankful the cold temperatures had left her lethargic and non-aggressive. I’ve read that yellow jackets feed on various insects that can be harmful in an ornamental flower garden, and so I hesitantly chose not to interfere with her nesting plans, but I may regret my decision later this summer if I–or some visitor to the garden–is stung by any of her progeny. It’s been many years since I’ve been attacked by a yellow jacket, and I would prefer not to experience any comparable encounters in 2018.
The garden did have a much friendlier visitor this morning, Cara Farmer, the sculptor responsible for several notable additions to the garden the past year, including the two large metal spheres, Ringo and Sisyphus. This morning she took back to her shop the sundial she designed–which needed some minor epoxy upkeep. We also talked about the possibility of her designing, constructing, and installing a new sundial in front of the gazebo. After measuring the space and discussing the sundial’s profile, she was on her way, promising to send me a proposal later this week. Meanwhile, I returned to the rock and crevice gardens, trying to groom them for the return of spring--while also trying to avoid further interactions with one female yellow jacket.
Monday Morning Garden Report: 5 March 2018
After having been gone for the past three weeks on a trip to London and Malta, I was eager to “see how things were” in the Alumni House Garden. We drove back into C.R. Friday afternoon, and Saturday morning I was walking through the garden, harvesting a crop of recent trash, uncovering the wooden sundial we had enshrouded for the winter, and considering the possibility of installing in front of the gazebo a new sundial.
I don’t recall my initial infatuation with sundials, but when we moved into our current home, the first thing I installed in the backyard was a small sundial perched on an Osage orange fence post, a garden clock still on the same post almost 40 years later. The summer I started working in the Alumni House Garden, one of my first non-plant additions was a small sundial, now located behind an “iron ore red” garden bench in front of the patio. I’ve read that Sir William Temple of Moor Park, Surrey (where for 11 years Jonathan Swift served as the baronet’s personal secretary) requested that after his death his heart be buried under a sundial in his garden. I’m not sure my passion for sundials runs that deep, but I do find the idea symbolically attractive.
In Alice Morse Earle’s Old Times Gardens, published in 1901, the author frequently reminds her readers how essential it is for a garden to have at least one sundial. Perhaps for a New Englander the appeal of sundials was based on their steady insistence that we must not waste our lives in “idle dalliance.” Most sundials have mottoes, and most of those mottoes warn us that tempus is always fugiting.
•” As a shadow such is life.”
• “Man is like a thing of nought, his time passeth away like a shadow.”
• “Life’s but a shadowe / Man’s but dust / This Dyall sayes / Dy all we must.”
• “Utere, non numera.” (Use the hours, don't count them.)
• “Time waits for No Man” (with its clever pun on “gnomon”)
My infatuation with sundials was rekindled last week with a visit to Waterlow Park in northwest London. We were in the park because we had purchased tickets for a tour of Highgate Cemetery, and we had two hours before our tour began. Since Waterlow Park borders Highgate, we spent an hour exploring the park and came upon this wonderful sundial. It had a 6-7' tall gnomon surrounded by twelve distinct flower beds, each small bed corresponding to an hour of the day. As soon as I saw this sundial, I immediately envisioned a comparable sundial–though on a smaller scale–installed in a circular flower bed in front of the gazebo.
Although I did stop to pick up two plastic bags and a discarded Big Mac box, Saturday's visit to Coe’s Alumni House Garden was focused on the northeast corner. I wanted to stand in the gazebo, to look out at the garden, and to imagine a sundial installed where we now have a congregation of tulips, daylilies, ox-eye daisies, and hyssop. After stepping off a circular bed with a 4' radius, I decided this project might be doable and worth further consideration.
Thank goodness for the lovely weekend weather, because this morning the sky had turned overcast and there was a notable dampness in the air. Lacking any enthusiasm for venturing outside the garden shed, I spent the morning deleting three weeks of unread email, watering five flats of seedlings in the greenhouse, and downloading (plus labeling) photos of the London/Malta trip. As it turned out, the weather soon deteriorated, temperatures dropped below freezing, and by early afternoon we were in a wind-driven mix of sleet and snow. So my Monday morning report became dependent on an afternoon inspection of the garden through the garden shed window. It was fun envisaging a 5' steel gnomon in front of the gazebo--a solid, secure, black timepiece surrounded by the white, restless, swirling snow. While I trust a new sundial would successfully resist the worst of a an Iowa winter, I also hope that whatever we construct might become a natural and integrated part of the landscape, a timely reminder on sunny days of how our hours are passing away “like a shadow.”
I shall end today’s report with an excerpt on sun dials from “The Old Benchers of the Inner Temple” by Charles Lamb. In the essay Lamb notes Andrew Marvell’s creation of a sundial using flowers and herbs to record the hour of the day, perhaps a precursor of what we discovered in Waterlow Park.
What a dead thing is a clock, with its ponderous embowelments of lead or brass, its pert or solemn dulness of communication, compared with the simple altar-like structure and silent heart-language of the old dial! It stood as the garden god of Christian gardens. Why is it almost everywhere banished? If its business use be suspended by more elaborate inventions, its moral uses, its beauty, might have pleaded for its continuance. It spoke of moderate labors, of pleasures not protracted after sunset, of temperance and good hours. It was the primitive clock, the horologe of the first world. Adam could scarce have missed it in Paradise. The ‘shepherd carved it out quaintly in the sun,’ and turning philosopher by the very occupation, provided it with mottoes more touching than tombstones.
After having been gone for the past three weeks on a trip to London and Malta, I was eager to “see how things were” in the Alumni House Garden. We drove back into C.R. Friday afternoon, and Saturday morning I was walking through the garden, harvesting a crop of recent trash, uncovering the wooden sundial we had enshrouded for the winter, and considering the possibility of installing in front of the gazebo a new sundial.
I don’t recall my initial infatuation with sundials, but when we moved into our current home, the first thing I installed in the backyard was a small sundial perched on an Osage orange fence post, a garden clock still on the same post almost 40 years later. The summer I started working in the Alumni House Garden, one of my first non-plant additions was a small sundial, now located behind an “iron ore red” garden bench in front of the patio. I’ve read that Sir William Temple of Moor Park, Surrey (where for 11 years Jonathan Swift served as the baronet’s personal secretary) requested that after his death his heart be buried under a sundial in his garden. I’m not sure my passion for sundials runs that deep, but I do find the idea symbolically attractive.
In Alice Morse Earle’s Old Times Gardens, published in 1901, the author frequently reminds her readers how essential it is for a garden to have at least one sundial. Perhaps for a New Englander the appeal of sundials was based on their steady insistence that we must not waste our lives in “idle dalliance.” Most sundials have mottoes, and most of those mottoes warn us that tempus is always fugiting.
•” As a shadow such is life.”
• “Man is like a thing of nought, his time passeth away like a shadow.”
• “Life’s but a shadowe / Man’s but dust / This Dyall sayes / Dy all we must.”
• “Utere, non numera.” (Use the hours, don't count them.)
• “Time waits for No Man” (with its clever pun on “gnomon”)
My infatuation with sundials was rekindled last week with a visit to Waterlow Park in northwest London. We were in the park because we had purchased tickets for a tour of Highgate Cemetery, and we had two hours before our tour began. Since Waterlow Park borders Highgate, we spent an hour exploring the park and came upon this wonderful sundial. It had a 6-7' tall gnomon surrounded by twelve distinct flower beds, each small bed corresponding to an hour of the day. As soon as I saw this sundial, I immediately envisioned a comparable sundial–though on a smaller scale–installed in a circular flower bed in front of the gazebo.
Although I did stop to pick up two plastic bags and a discarded Big Mac box, Saturday's visit to Coe’s Alumni House Garden was focused on the northeast corner. I wanted to stand in the gazebo, to look out at the garden, and to imagine a sundial installed where we now have a congregation of tulips, daylilies, ox-eye daisies, and hyssop. After stepping off a circular bed with a 4' radius, I decided this project might be doable and worth further consideration.
Thank goodness for the lovely weekend weather, because this morning the sky had turned overcast and there was a notable dampness in the air. Lacking any enthusiasm for venturing outside the garden shed, I spent the morning deleting three weeks of unread email, watering five flats of seedlings in the greenhouse, and downloading (plus labeling) photos of the London/Malta trip. As it turned out, the weather soon deteriorated, temperatures dropped below freezing, and by early afternoon we were in a wind-driven mix of sleet and snow. So my Monday morning report became dependent on an afternoon inspection of the garden through the garden shed window. It was fun envisaging a 5' steel gnomon in front of the gazebo--a solid, secure, black timepiece surrounded by the white, restless, swirling snow. While I trust a new sundial would successfully resist the worst of a an Iowa winter, I also hope that whatever we construct might become a natural and integrated part of the landscape, a timely reminder on sunny days of how our hours are passing away “like a shadow.”
I shall end today’s report with an excerpt on sun dials from “The Old Benchers of the Inner Temple” by Charles Lamb. In the essay Lamb notes Andrew Marvell’s creation of a sundial using flowers and herbs to record the hour of the day, perhaps a precursor of what we discovered in Waterlow Park.
What a dead thing is a clock, with its ponderous embowelments of lead or brass, its pert or solemn dulness of communication, compared with the simple altar-like structure and silent heart-language of the old dial! It stood as the garden god of Christian gardens. Why is it almost everywhere banished? If its business use be suspended by more elaborate inventions, its moral uses, its beauty, might have pleaded for its continuance. It spoke of moderate labors, of pleasures not protracted after sunset, of temperance and good hours. It was the primitive clock, the horologe of the first world. Adam could scarce have missed it in Paradise. The ‘shepherd carved it out quaintly in the sun,’ and turning philosopher by the very occupation, provided it with mottoes more touching than tombstones.
Monday Morning Garden Report: 5 February 2018
As I was leaving the garden shed, our Oregon Scientific weather station informed me the temperature was 13F and humidity a steady 36%. What the digital display didn’t tell me was that it felt like a bleak, mid-winter day. Nothing in the garden looked happy to be there. The troops were all hunkered down, just trying to survive. In Michael Pollan’s Second Nature, he quotes Capability Brown, the 18th-century English garden designer, who believed that good gardens need an itinerary, a story that unfolds as you move through the garden. This morning, Coe’s garden seemed to have no narrative, no surprises, no inviting mysteries. The garden was a uniform, two-dimensional canvas, without shadows or movement.
Fortunately, initial impressions are often misleading, and as I walked into the garden, the illusion of its tone-deaf flatness quickly dissolved. Although I know I use the word “garden” more frequently as a noun than a verb, I’ve begun to realize that when I think of the gardens where I spend my days, “garden” primarily functions as a verb. By its nature, a garden is always evolving, more a process than a product. I’m reminded of a passage in an essay by Louise Erdrich in Books and Islands in Ojibwe Country where she discusses how two-thirds of the words in Ojibwe are verbs, each verb with countless forms. Ojibwe is a language of action, everything in the world dynamic and in transition. Perhaps the word “garden” is really an Ojibwe word that somehow ended up in English, its vitality undeservedly constrained by our straight-laced, inflectionless grammar.
Although yesterday had been quite windy, the only litter I collected this morning was a pair of candy wrappers: a Quaker Oats Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Chewy Granola Bar (I had not realized its name was so long until I started typing it–with seven nouns functioning as adjectives) and an artificially flavored, soft & chewy Sour Patch Watermelon candy (which advertises itself as “fat free”–though its 5 grams of “sugar, invert sugar, corn syrup” manage to deliver 210 calories). The granola bar wrapper was caught in the rock garden, the Alum House Garden’s most common trash repository. As I was picking up the wrapper, I scanned the layer of leaves–mostly red oak--covering the rock and crevice gardens. While allowing these leaves to remain as a protective cover for our “alpine” plants, I periodically worry the leaves may be smothering the sedum and moss phlox in the water-soaked soil. I presume these plants are like me: they don’t like to spend many days with their feet wet and cold. Once the spring sun arrives, the pea gravel will quickly warm up the soil, assuming the sunshine can reach the gravel. We’ll wait a few more weeks before removing the leaves.
Walking past the “D” bed, I took a few minutes to study a pair of ornamental grasses in the middle of the bed: a Miscanthus sinensis ‘Arabesque’ and a Panicum virgatum ‘Heavy Metal’ switch grass. Neither grass has thrived in this location, both overshadowed by their taller neighbors (a dwarf lilac, a large clump of tansy, and several Joe Pye). Looking at them this morning, with all surrounding vegetation stripped away, I realized the two grasses, each looking rather lost and forlorn, don’t work together very well. My initial impulse was to move the miscanthus to the western raised “J” bed. Two years ago I put two miscanthus at the back of the other raised “J” bed, and they are doing okay in that location. Although I probably will not purchase any more miscanthus (they provide virtually no sustenance for wildlife), we’ll continue for the short term using the ones we have. As for the “D” bed, I would like to have a group of taller ornamental grasses that complement the grasses in the middle of the “K” bed. It would be good to enhance the symmetry of this arrangement without making it appear too neat and symmetrical. A large clump of switch grass should look good in that location, but I’m not convinced ‘Heavy Metal’ is the right choice. So far it has not self-seeded, but I’ve read its seedlings don’t come true from seed and would need to be removed if they did appear. In contrast, the switch grass at the back of the “H” bed has performed brilliantly. Although it was a gift and I don’t know its provenance, it might make sense to dig up one of those “H” clumps, divide it into 3-4 new clumps, and replant them in the “D” bed.
There was one other moment this morning when I was surprised by what should have been obvious: in one of the raised “E” beds were two 3' tall dills–brown, desiccated, but remarkably erect. Each dill had a full set of seed umbels, with most of the seeds dutifully hanging on to the mother plant. From my backpack, I took out my 10x loupe and examined the seeds under this small magnifier. The seeds looked like tiny brown snails, but with distinct ridges running down each torso. The loupe’s scale informed me each seed was about 3 mm in length. I have just finished reading a book on Anton van Leeuwenhoek and his remarkable skill in estimating the size of microscopic life forms he was observing with his home-made microscopes. To convey the minute dimensions of these of objects, Leeuwenhoek would estimate how many of the objects would be needed to fill a granule of sand. I should remember never to take my loupe’s assistance for granted.
I left the garden, carrying with me a single dill umbel. The botanical term “umbel” was apparently coined in the 1590s and derives from “umbella,” the Latin word for umbrella. It turns out that the first recorded use of the English word “umbrella” also arrived in our language at the same time, first appearing in a letter by John Donne, circa 1600. I spin the dill stem slowly between my thumb and forefinger, pleased by this unexpected echo of a summer now past, a promise of a summer to come. I begin to see the dill as an inverted bell, quietly tolling for me.
Photo: Seed head of a Purple Coneflower
As I was leaving the garden shed, our Oregon Scientific weather station informed me the temperature was 13F and humidity a steady 36%. What the digital display didn’t tell me was that it felt like a bleak, mid-winter day. Nothing in the garden looked happy to be there. The troops were all hunkered down, just trying to survive. In Michael Pollan’s Second Nature, he quotes Capability Brown, the 18th-century English garden designer, who believed that good gardens need an itinerary, a story that unfolds as you move through the garden. This morning, Coe’s garden seemed to have no narrative, no surprises, no inviting mysteries. The garden was a uniform, two-dimensional canvas, without shadows or movement.
Fortunately, initial impressions are often misleading, and as I walked into the garden, the illusion of its tone-deaf flatness quickly dissolved. Although I know I use the word “garden” more frequently as a noun than a verb, I’ve begun to realize that when I think of the gardens where I spend my days, “garden” primarily functions as a verb. By its nature, a garden is always evolving, more a process than a product. I’m reminded of a passage in an essay by Louise Erdrich in Books and Islands in Ojibwe Country where she discusses how two-thirds of the words in Ojibwe are verbs, each verb with countless forms. Ojibwe is a language of action, everything in the world dynamic and in transition. Perhaps the word “garden” is really an Ojibwe word that somehow ended up in English, its vitality undeservedly constrained by our straight-laced, inflectionless grammar.
Although yesterday had been quite windy, the only litter I collected this morning was a pair of candy wrappers: a Quaker Oats Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Chewy Granola Bar (I had not realized its name was so long until I started typing it–with seven nouns functioning as adjectives) and an artificially flavored, soft & chewy Sour Patch Watermelon candy (which advertises itself as “fat free”–though its 5 grams of “sugar, invert sugar, corn syrup” manage to deliver 210 calories). The granola bar wrapper was caught in the rock garden, the Alum House Garden’s most common trash repository. As I was picking up the wrapper, I scanned the layer of leaves–mostly red oak--covering the rock and crevice gardens. While allowing these leaves to remain as a protective cover for our “alpine” plants, I periodically worry the leaves may be smothering the sedum and moss phlox in the water-soaked soil. I presume these plants are like me: they don’t like to spend many days with their feet wet and cold. Once the spring sun arrives, the pea gravel will quickly warm up the soil, assuming the sunshine can reach the gravel. We’ll wait a few more weeks before removing the leaves.
Walking past the “D” bed, I took a few minutes to study a pair of ornamental grasses in the middle of the bed: a Miscanthus sinensis ‘Arabesque’ and a Panicum virgatum ‘Heavy Metal’ switch grass. Neither grass has thrived in this location, both overshadowed by their taller neighbors (a dwarf lilac, a large clump of tansy, and several Joe Pye). Looking at them this morning, with all surrounding vegetation stripped away, I realized the two grasses, each looking rather lost and forlorn, don’t work together very well. My initial impulse was to move the miscanthus to the western raised “J” bed. Two years ago I put two miscanthus at the back of the other raised “J” bed, and they are doing okay in that location. Although I probably will not purchase any more miscanthus (they provide virtually no sustenance for wildlife), we’ll continue for the short term using the ones we have. As for the “D” bed, I would like to have a group of taller ornamental grasses that complement the grasses in the middle of the “K” bed. It would be good to enhance the symmetry of this arrangement without making it appear too neat and symmetrical. A large clump of switch grass should look good in that location, but I’m not convinced ‘Heavy Metal’ is the right choice. So far it has not self-seeded, but I’ve read its seedlings don’t come true from seed and would need to be removed if they did appear. In contrast, the switch grass at the back of the “H” bed has performed brilliantly. Although it was a gift and I don’t know its provenance, it might make sense to dig up one of those “H” clumps, divide it into 3-4 new clumps, and replant them in the “D” bed.
There was one other moment this morning when I was surprised by what should have been obvious: in one of the raised “E” beds were two 3' tall dills–brown, desiccated, but remarkably erect. Each dill had a full set of seed umbels, with most of the seeds dutifully hanging on to the mother plant. From my backpack, I took out my 10x loupe and examined the seeds under this small magnifier. The seeds looked like tiny brown snails, but with distinct ridges running down each torso. The loupe’s scale informed me each seed was about 3 mm in length. I have just finished reading a book on Anton van Leeuwenhoek and his remarkable skill in estimating the size of microscopic life forms he was observing with his home-made microscopes. To convey the minute dimensions of these of objects, Leeuwenhoek would estimate how many of the objects would be needed to fill a granule of sand. I should remember never to take my loupe’s assistance for granted.
I left the garden, carrying with me a single dill umbel. The botanical term “umbel” was apparently coined in the 1590s and derives from “umbella,” the Latin word for umbrella. It turns out that the first recorded use of the English word “umbrella” also arrived in our language at the same time, first appearing in a letter by John Donne, circa 1600. I spin the dill stem slowly between my thumb and forefinger, pleased by this unexpected echo of a summer now past, a promise of a summer to come. I begin to see the dill as an inverted bell, quietly tolling for me.
Photo: Seed head of a Purple Coneflower
Monday Morning Garden Report: 22 January 2018
An English winter morning: temperature at 30 C, overcast, gray clouds leaking upon us a cold dampness. Last night was a Midwest thunderstorm, with rain and springtime lightning/thunder. This morning is quieter, more restrained, the low pressure’s curved arm protecting us from the blizzard to the north and west. When I arrived at the garden an hour ago, the garden lights were still on, but within minutes a marginal increase in sunlight convinced the light sensor that daytime had arrived, and the electric lights dutifully retreated.
The garden looks dramatically different from its bright, crisp appearance when I recorded my last Monday Morning Garden Report two weeks ago. The snow is gone, except for a few scattered patches, mostly shaded by the south fence. Many of the gravel walkways are flooded, the melted snow unable to seep into the frozen, compacted clay mixture under the gravel. In several spots the walkways are spongy, my boots leaving indentations in the small rocks.
Since I had not visited the garden for several days, my walk immediately became an exercise in litter collection: a plastic Hy-Vee bag, several candy wrappers, an empty peanut butter jar. Fortunately, nothing like the old bed mattress dumped over the garden wall several years ago. Nor anything to match my good fortune when I was in the Army, stationed in Germany. One morning I picked up a $10 bill during a morning police call. After typing that phrase “police call,” I consulted an on-line urban dictionary to learn the phrase’s history. Results: “The act of getting United States Marines from the ranks of E-3 and below, in a straight line, from which they walk together and pick up every little fucking piece of trash on the ground, even gum and used dip tabacco.” I think I was an E-4 at the time, so the Army must have had different rules for police call duty. Nor do I recall we ever operated in a straight line. But I do suspect our sergeant encouraged us to pick up “every little fucking piece of trash”–which, for me, included a soggy portrait of Alexander Hamilton near the fence surrounding the 97th General Hospital.
Midway through my garden walk, the rain returns and so I step into the gazebo, where it’s dry and distinctly warmer. As I look out at the deserted garden, I recall my freshman year in college, standing in a doorway outside the journalism library at Kansas State. I liked studying in that library because it was always quiet, rarely used by faculty or students. While I enjoyed most aspects of my college life, I frequently needed to find a private space where I felt no pressures to interact with other people. The journalism library was my godsend. I recall one chilly afternoon, standing outside the entrance of the library, savoring the cold air of the Flint Hills as it mixed with the building’s radiant warmth. It appears a garden gazebo in Iowa has now replaced that small library back in Kansas.
Looking out across the east end of the garden, I’m enthralled by so many plants that in the middle of January can still render such unexpected beauty: the seed heads of the hydrangea shrubs, the orange foliage of the Siberian iris, the red branches of the dogwood, the tan leaves of the switch grass and miscanthus. I pull out my green “RiteintheRain” notebook and start jotting down my morning observations. My focus, however, soon shifts from these remnants of perseverance to a series of dead zones where changes need to be made. Here are twelve spatial failures on the south side of the garden that made my initial list, accompanied by a few guesses on what might eventually fill those areas.
“A” Bed
• Remove the lone gooseberry bush; perhaps replace with more hyssops, which have done well in this area; we’ll keep the apple mint and lemon balm–though the mint last year was overwhelmed by its balmy mint cousin.
“C” Bed
• A shady area where last fall I removed several spurge and small rose bushes. After having spent the last three years removing rose bushes from this and the “L” bed, I’m now thinking about planting new rose bushes, perhaps heirloom varieties. Whatever the final choice, they must be fragrant–a quality notably lacking in all our remaining rose bushes.
• Area behind the hostas, underneath the flowering crab. Two years ago, I transplanted some meadow sweet (which have done okay, though hit hard by the Japanese beetles last July) and a few ferns mixed with a few lilies-of-the-valley; neither the ferns nor the lilies have spread–they appear just to be holding on. The area looks bleak and barren. Neighboring goats beard have done well; perhaps I should fill in the space with more goats beard–which would be a better height than ferns and lilies.
“D” Bed
• There’s a gap in the yews where I planted an elderberry three years ago. The elderberry is still alive but has not thrived (needs more sun) and should be moved. I recently saw a photograph of an English garden where they had inserted a small bench in a comparable space between two yews; probably a solution too radical for my temperament, but I do find it tempting.
• A middle border zone where I have planted poppies and lupine the last three years, but nothing has done well; several small lupines and one poppy came up last year, but no blooms. We need a dependable mid-border perennial tall enough to look good in front of the Joe Pye.
• A third area of concern is at the east end of the bed where last summer I dug out a large tansy while trying to salvage a peony bush that had been overrun by the thick-rooted tansy. I wonder if the peony will rebound and manage to fill that space. I also moved some Siberian iris to a spot west of the peony, though I have no idea how effectively they might complement each other. While writing this note, I just realized I adopted a similar solution last fall when I cleaned up a “wilderness” area in the middle of the “G” bed and assembled a combination of peonies and Siberian iris I had rescued from that reclamation project.
“E” Beds. These three beds are mostly annuals, making it much easier to envision new combinations for 2018.
• With the western “E” bed, I may re-position the potted rosemary (now overwintering in the greenhouse) into the middle of the bed and surround it with 5-6 varieties of basil–which all thrived in this bed last year.
• As for the east bed, I will remove the borage (too large) and the tarragon (which needs more morning sunlight). Probably will also move the little bluestem next to the brick wall; it became floppy by mid-summer (perhaps the soil is too rich, combined with absence of morning sun). The creeping thyme, oregano, sage, and parsley all did well in the bed, and I may simply expand their areas. As for the London Pride, their bright red blossoms provided an attractive backdrop for the herbs. I hope these Victorian classics survive the winter.
• As for the dahlia bed, my primary concern is doing a better job surrounding the dahlias with cosmos–which nicely complement the dahlias. The plains coreopsis also did well in that bed; I hope they continue to be a vigorous self-seeders (though that means frequently digging them out of the gravel walkway, their preferred terrain).
“F” Bed. Three gaps to be filled after moving current occupants.
• The Sioux Blue Indian Grass looks okay, but it’s floppy and it would work better to have another pennisetum to match with the visually dynamic P. alopecuroides Fountain Grass in the “D” bed.
• I need to find more effective plants to go around the false indigo baptisia. The perennial foxglove is too close to the baptisia, was very slow to leaf out last summer, and never bloomed. A similar problem with the Stokes Asters in front of the baptisia. Perhaps they should all be moved forward, replacing several of the front of border plants (e.g., two small columbine that are surviving but not thriving).
• At the east end of the bed is an area overshadowed by the 7-8' Joe Pye. That corner is now a jumble of plants, including several daylilies, a daisy, and two goats beard planted two years ago. I could replace everyone with hostas, but I would prefer something taller to balance the Lysimachia punctata loosestrife on the other side of the SE park bench. I also need to be more proactive in increasing the plants that provide food and sustenance for local wildlife. We need something more than just a pretty face.
By the time I finish jotting down my observations, the cloud cover has dissipated and the garden is now glowing in the late morning sunshine. The garden feels so much brighter, many patches of brown and tan foliage acquiring a vibrant resonance it lacked when I first walked into the garden. Amazing what a little sunshine can do.
January 22 Photo: our first tray of seedlings in the new greenhouse, seven days after sowing the seeds.
An English winter morning: temperature at 30 C, overcast, gray clouds leaking upon us a cold dampness. Last night was a Midwest thunderstorm, with rain and springtime lightning/thunder. This morning is quieter, more restrained, the low pressure’s curved arm protecting us from the blizzard to the north and west. When I arrived at the garden an hour ago, the garden lights were still on, but within minutes a marginal increase in sunlight convinced the light sensor that daytime had arrived, and the electric lights dutifully retreated.
The garden looks dramatically different from its bright, crisp appearance when I recorded my last Monday Morning Garden Report two weeks ago. The snow is gone, except for a few scattered patches, mostly shaded by the south fence. Many of the gravel walkways are flooded, the melted snow unable to seep into the frozen, compacted clay mixture under the gravel. In several spots the walkways are spongy, my boots leaving indentations in the small rocks.
Since I had not visited the garden for several days, my walk immediately became an exercise in litter collection: a plastic Hy-Vee bag, several candy wrappers, an empty peanut butter jar. Fortunately, nothing like the old bed mattress dumped over the garden wall several years ago. Nor anything to match my good fortune when I was in the Army, stationed in Germany. One morning I picked up a $10 bill during a morning police call. After typing that phrase “police call,” I consulted an on-line urban dictionary to learn the phrase’s history. Results: “The act of getting United States Marines from the ranks of E-3 and below, in a straight line, from which they walk together and pick up every little fucking piece of trash on the ground, even gum and used dip tabacco.” I think I was an E-4 at the time, so the Army must have had different rules for police call duty. Nor do I recall we ever operated in a straight line. But I do suspect our sergeant encouraged us to pick up “every little fucking piece of trash”–which, for me, included a soggy portrait of Alexander Hamilton near the fence surrounding the 97th General Hospital.
Midway through my garden walk, the rain returns and so I step into the gazebo, where it’s dry and distinctly warmer. As I look out at the deserted garden, I recall my freshman year in college, standing in a doorway outside the journalism library at Kansas State. I liked studying in that library because it was always quiet, rarely used by faculty or students. While I enjoyed most aspects of my college life, I frequently needed to find a private space where I felt no pressures to interact with other people. The journalism library was my godsend. I recall one chilly afternoon, standing outside the entrance of the library, savoring the cold air of the Flint Hills as it mixed with the building’s radiant warmth. It appears a garden gazebo in Iowa has now replaced that small library back in Kansas.
Looking out across the east end of the garden, I’m enthralled by so many plants that in the middle of January can still render such unexpected beauty: the seed heads of the hydrangea shrubs, the orange foliage of the Siberian iris, the red branches of the dogwood, the tan leaves of the switch grass and miscanthus. I pull out my green “RiteintheRain” notebook and start jotting down my morning observations. My focus, however, soon shifts from these remnants of perseverance to a series of dead zones where changes need to be made. Here are twelve spatial failures on the south side of the garden that made my initial list, accompanied by a few guesses on what might eventually fill those areas.
“A” Bed
• Remove the lone gooseberry bush; perhaps replace with more hyssops, which have done well in this area; we’ll keep the apple mint and lemon balm–though the mint last year was overwhelmed by its balmy mint cousin.
“C” Bed
• A shady area where last fall I removed several spurge and small rose bushes. After having spent the last three years removing rose bushes from this and the “L” bed, I’m now thinking about planting new rose bushes, perhaps heirloom varieties. Whatever the final choice, they must be fragrant–a quality notably lacking in all our remaining rose bushes.
• Area behind the hostas, underneath the flowering crab. Two years ago, I transplanted some meadow sweet (which have done okay, though hit hard by the Japanese beetles last July) and a few ferns mixed with a few lilies-of-the-valley; neither the ferns nor the lilies have spread–they appear just to be holding on. The area looks bleak and barren. Neighboring goats beard have done well; perhaps I should fill in the space with more goats beard–which would be a better height than ferns and lilies.
“D” Bed
• There’s a gap in the yews where I planted an elderberry three years ago. The elderberry is still alive but has not thrived (needs more sun) and should be moved. I recently saw a photograph of an English garden where they had inserted a small bench in a comparable space between two yews; probably a solution too radical for my temperament, but I do find it tempting.
• A middle border zone where I have planted poppies and lupine the last three years, but nothing has done well; several small lupines and one poppy came up last year, but no blooms. We need a dependable mid-border perennial tall enough to look good in front of the Joe Pye.
• A third area of concern is at the east end of the bed where last summer I dug out a large tansy while trying to salvage a peony bush that had been overrun by the thick-rooted tansy. I wonder if the peony will rebound and manage to fill that space. I also moved some Siberian iris to a spot west of the peony, though I have no idea how effectively they might complement each other. While writing this note, I just realized I adopted a similar solution last fall when I cleaned up a “wilderness” area in the middle of the “G” bed and assembled a combination of peonies and Siberian iris I had rescued from that reclamation project.
“E” Beds. These three beds are mostly annuals, making it much easier to envision new combinations for 2018.
• With the western “E” bed, I may re-position the potted rosemary (now overwintering in the greenhouse) into the middle of the bed and surround it with 5-6 varieties of basil–which all thrived in this bed last year.
• As for the east bed, I will remove the borage (too large) and the tarragon (which needs more morning sunlight). Probably will also move the little bluestem next to the brick wall; it became floppy by mid-summer (perhaps the soil is too rich, combined with absence of morning sun). The creeping thyme, oregano, sage, and parsley all did well in the bed, and I may simply expand their areas. As for the London Pride, their bright red blossoms provided an attractive backdrop for the herbs. I hope these Victorian classics survive the winter.
• As for the dahlia bed, my primary concern is doing a better job surrounding the dahlias with cosmos–which nicely complement the dahlias. The plains coreopsis also did well in that bed; I hope they continue to be a vigorous self-seeders (though that means frequently digging them out of the gravel walkway, their preferred terrain).
“F” Bed. Three gaps to be filled after moving current occupants.
• The Sioux Blue Indian Grass looks okay, but it’s floppy and it would work better to have another pennisetum to match with the visually dynamic P. alopecuroides Fountain Grass in the “D” bed.
• I need to find more effective plants to go around the false indigo baptisia. The perennial foxglove is too close to the baptisia, was very slow to leaf out last summer, and never bloomed. A similar problem with the Stokes Asters in front of the baptisia. Perhaps they should all be moved forward, replacing several of the front of border plants (e.g., two small columbine that are surviving but not thriving).
• At the east end of the bed is an area overshadowed by the 7-8' Joe Pye. That corner is now a jumble of plants, including several daylilies, a daisy, and two goats beard planted two years ago. I could replace everyone with hostas, but I would prefer something taller to balance the Lysimachia punctata loosestrife on the other side of the SE park bench. I also need to be more proactive in increasing the plants that provide food and sustenance for local wildlife. We need something more than just a pretty face.
By the time I finish jotting down my observations, the cloud cover has dissipated and the garden is now glowing in the late morning sunshine. The garden feels so much brighter, many patches of brown and tan foliage acquiring a vibrant resonance it lacked when I first walked into the garden. Amazing what a little sunshine can do.
January 22 Photo: our first tray of seedlings in the new greenhouse, seven days after sowing the seeds.
Monday Morning Garden Report: 8 January 2018
“It is in vain that we say what we see; what we see never resides in what we say.” ~Michel Foucault
Tomorrow is my mother’s birthday, born in 1912, 106 years ago. She would have been pleased with today’s warmer temperatures after two weeks of sub-freezing conditions. She hated the cold, a primary reason why she also hated our old farmhouse. During the winter months, only the kitchen and living room were heated by a small, soot-covered, pot-belly stove. Perhaps my bedroom was warmer in the winter than the outdoor temperatures, but on most January nights the difference would have been negligible. Eighteen years in that unheated bedroom, however, did prepare me for my four years at Kansas State, sleeping in an open-air dorm. My bed was below a window screen with no glass pane. On several occasions I swept the snow off the bed before slipping underneath the electric bed. But on the farm, there was no electric blanket. It was just body heat surrounded by flannel sheets and a heavy blanket.
Judging by footprints in the snow, a few squirrels and I have been the garden’s only visitors since our first snowfall in December. I treasure the snow, not only for its efficacy in protecting Zone 5 perennials, but also for the visual transformation of the landscape. Last year we never had a satisfying, long-lasting snow cover. This year, however, the arctic temperatures have ensured there would be no quick desecration of the snow-covered landscape. The thick layer of whiteness–like a freshly woven linen cloth laid across the garden–seems to accentuate the space’s fundamental integrity. In these conditions the garden acquires an attractive minimalism, a clarity in proportions and structure not so readily evident in the summer. Reduced to winter’s limited palette of colors, dominated by the snow’s purity, the garden feels distilled, enhanced, unencumbered by the other seasons’ extravagances–somehow sanctified.
As I walk around the garden’s perimeter, following the tracks of my journeys the past two weeks, I wish I could find a unique, original language for expressing what I sense. When I was teaching composition classes, I frequently reminded students not to worry about being original. Their assigned task was simply to strive for precision and accuracy. Originality and beauty must take care of themselves. It’s frustrating, however, to heed the wisdom of my own advice. But, as Samuel Beckett, reminds us: "Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better."
This weekend I began reading Laura J. Snyder’s Eye of the Beholder, which explores the revolutionary discoveries in optics that shaped the lives of Johannes Vermeer and Antoni van Leeuwenhoek in 17th-century Delft. It must have been incredibly exciting for them to use glass lenses and the camera obscura to experience new ways of seeing, experiencing textures of color and light in new ways. To help me see what I have been missing, my Canon camera has accompanied me on several garden walks this past week. Later, looking at the photographs downloaded on my computer, the images help sharpen my attentiveness to the landscape. One of the photos is posted as the end of this report; later this month, I will post a sample of these black and white photos to the “Garden Walks” page. What follows below are some of my observations during two garden walks (sans camera) this morning and later in the afternoon.
• A week ago, the high temperature in the garden was -7 F. Today, we are fifty degrees warmer. After two weeks of hard-core, winter temperatures, it feels quite balmy. I didn’t even bother to bring my gloves.
• The grass quad around the fountain remains pristine, unblemished by any tracks. The one exception are a squirrel’s tracks out to one of the large metal spheres (code named "Sisyphus") and the return. Otherwise the crystal carpet appears unblemished, not yet showing any evidence of the melting that must already be occurring.
• The snow background accentuates both the resiliency of several ornamental grasses and the sturdy toughness of many flowers’ seed heads, such as those in the aster/sunflower family: Purple Coneflowers, Black-Eyed Susans, New England Asters, several Goldenrods. I am impressed with the Pennisetum alopecuroides fountain grass at a corner of the “D” bed. This warm season ornamental grass is a graceful clump of golden yellow foliage, 3' tall and wide. The seed heads, resembling small bottle brushes, shoot outward from the clump, confirming the “fountain grass” sobriquet. I’ve been thinking about planting another P. alopecuroides in the corresponding corner of the “K” bed on the opposite side of the garden, but this grass is a non-native and some versions have the reputation for being aggressive invaders. So far, however, neither this Pennisetum nor the one near the pergola in the “H” bed has demonstrated any inclination to spread unwelcome progeny.
• Another grass at its best in the winter is Eragrostis spectabilis, commonly called purple love grass (“era” derives from the Greek “eros” and “agrostis” means “grass”). Unlike the P. alopecurioides, the E. spectabilis is a North American native--from Maine and South Dakota to Florida and Mexico–that is much smaller than the Pennisetum and looks a bit more disorganized. The seed heads produce a loose, frizzy cloud that can on occasion become a small tumbleweed. The two clumps in the “K” bed have thrived after being moved from a previous location surrounded by taller purple coneflowers. I like how this grass appears to absorb the warmth of the sun, creating a small bowl of private space within the surrounding snow.
• Several clumps of the Zagreb and Moonbeam Coreopsis have remained intact, only a few stems broken by the weight of the snow and ice. The erect stems, packed closely together, look like trees in a miniature forest.
• At the east end of the garden, two bunches of Verbena bonariensis (although the "bonariensis" derives from the capital of Argentina, the plant's common name is Brazilian vervain). These annuals are the products of self-seeding, deriving from several verbenas I planted in the spring of 2016. I love the soft, brown clumps of seeds on the 3-4' stems, still upright despite the snow and cold weather. I pull off one of the seed heads and break it apart, sprinkling the small, fluffy seeds on the snow behind a garden bench. Not a large or flashy flower, but a wonderful addition to the garden, demurely complementing whatever flowers might be in the neighborhood. They are not natives, but I can’t imagine an English garden without them.
• As one would expect, the snow on the north side of the garden–which catches the morning sunlight–is melting faster than on the south side. The north side yews have lost all their snow.
• The fruit on all the large flowering crab are gone, eaten by birds visiting in the late fall. One exception is the espalier apple tree, which has retained several small red apples (though distinctly larger than the apples on the older trees).
• Today, I didn’t see a single bird in the garden. I’m curious why the birds ignore the yews. Although these evergreens can be poisonous to some larger animals–such as cows and horses–I’m not aware they offer any danger to birds. I would think the yews could render some protective warmth for small birds, but their dense greenery appears to offer no appeal. I have come across several bird nests in the flowering crab, but I’ve never seen a nest in the yews.
• I have left all the baptisia (the false indigo) standing. Although not conventionally pretty, I am attracted to their gray winter stems and brittle leaves. And most of them remain unbowed through the winter. Thankfully, they are easy to clean up in the spring, the 3-4' stems easily breaking off from their root systems. No pruning required.
• The afternoon sky is cloudless, allowing the sun to create beautifully projected phantoms across the snowfield. I’m struck by the exquisite design of a crab apple’s shadow, stretching beyond the fountain. Meanwhile the Alumni House’s shadow slowly glides across the quad, as does my own shadow, having grown five or more feet in the past 20 minutes. The sun is now just a few degrees above the western horizon. It’s time to go in and type these notes.
“It is in vain that we say what we see; what we see never resides in what we say.” ~Michel Foucault
Tomorrow is my mother’s birthday, born in 1912, 106 years ago. She would have been pleased with today’s warmer temperatures after two weeks of sub-freezing conditions. She hated the cold, a primary reason why she also hated our old farmhouse. During the winter months, only the kitchen and living room were heated by a small, soot-covered, pot-belly stove. Perhaps my bedroom was warmer in the winter than the outdoor temperatures, but on most January nights the difference would have been negligible. Eighteen years in that unheated bedroom, however, did prepare me for my four years at Kansas State, sleeping in an open-air dorm. My bed was below a window screen with no glass pane. On several occasions I swept the snow off the bed before slipping underneath the electric bed. But on the farm, there was no electric blanket. It was just body heat surrounded by flannel sheets and a heavy blanket.
Judging by footprints in the snow, a few squirrels and I have been the garden’s only visitors since our first snowfall in December. I treasure the snow, not only for its efficacy in protecting Zone 5 perennials, but also for the visual transformation of the landscape. Last year we never had a satisfying, long-lasting snow cover. This year, however, the arctic temperatures have ensured there would be no quick desecration of the snow-covered landscape. The thick layer of whiteness–like a freshly woven linen cloth laid across the garden–seems to accentuate the space’s fundamental integrity. In these conditions the garden acquires an attractive minimalism, a clarity in proportions and structure not so readily evident in the summer. Reduced to winter’s limited palette of colors, dominated by the snow’s purity, the garden feels distilled, enhanced, unencumbered by the other seasons’ extravagances–somehow sanctified.
As I walk around the garden’s perimeter, following the tracks of my journeys the past two weeks, I wish I could find a unique, original language for expressing what I sense. When I was teaching composition classes, I frequently reminded students not to worry about being original. Their assigned task was simply to strive for precision and accuracy. Originality and beauty must take care of themselves. It’s frustrating, however, to heed the wisdom of my own advice. But, as Samuel Beckett, reminds us: "Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better."
This weekend I began reading Laura J. Snyder’s Eye of the Beholder, which explores the revolutionary discoveries in optics that shaped the lives of Johannes Vermeer and Antoni van Leeuwenhoek in 17th-century Delft. It must have been incredibly exciting for them to use glass lenses and the camera obscura to experience new ways of seeing, experiencing textures of color and light in new ways. To help me see what I have been missing, my Canon camera has accompanied me on several garden walks this past week. Later, looking at the photographs downloaded on my computer, the images help sharpen my attentiveness to the landscape. One of the photos is posted as the end of this report; later this month, I will post a sample of these black and white photos to the “Garden Walks” page. What follows below are some of my observations during two garden walks (sans camera) this morning and later in the afternoon.
• A week ago, the high temperature in the garden was -7 F. Today, we are fifty degrees warmer. After two weeks of hard-core, winter temperatures, it feels quite balmy. I didn’t even bother to bring my gloves.
• The grass quad around the fountain remains pristine, unblemished by any tracks. The one exception are a squirrel’s tracks out to one of the large metal spheres (code named "Sisyphus") and the return. Otherwise the crystal carpet appears unblemished, not yet showing any evidence of the melting that must already be occurring.
• The snow background accentuates both the resiliency of several ornamental grasses and the sturdy toughness of many flowers’ seed heads, such as those in the aster/sunflower family: Purple Coneflowers, Black-Eyed Susans, New England Asters, several Goldenrods. I am impressed with the Pennisetum alopecuroides fountain grass at a corner of the “D” bed. This warm season ornamental grass is a graceful clump of golden yellow foliage, 3' tall and wide. The seed heads, resembling small bottle brushes, shoot outward from the clump, confirming the “fountain grass” sobriquet. I’ve been thinking about planting another P. alopecuroides in the corresponding corner of the “K” bed on the opposite side of the garden, but this grass is a non-native and some versions have the reputation for being aggressive invaders. So far, however, neither this Pennisetum nor the one near the pergola in the “H” bed has demonstrated any inclination to spread unwelcome progeny.
• Another grass at its best in the winter is Eragrostis spectabilis, commonly called purple love grass (“era” derives from the Greek “eros” and “agrostis” means “grass”). Unlike the P. alopecurioides, the E. spectabilis is a North American native--from Maine and South Dakota to Florida and Mexico–that is much smaller than the Pennisetum and looks a bit more disorganized. The seed heads produce a loose, frizzy cloud that can on occasion become a small tumbleweed. The two clumps in the “K” bed have thrived after being moved from a previous location surrounded by taller purple coneflowers. I like how this grass appears to absorb the warmth of the sun, creating a small bowl of private space within the surrounding snow.
• Several clumps of the Zagreb and Moonbeam Coreopsis have remained intact, only a few stems broken by the weight of the snow and ice. The erect stems, packed closely together, look like trees in a miniature forest.
• At the east end of the garden, two bunches of Verbena bonariensis (although the "bonariensis" derives from the capital of Argentina, the plant's common name is Brazilian vervain). These annuals are the products of self-seeding, deriving from several verbenas I planted in the spring of 2016. I love the soft, brown clumps of seeds on the 3-4' stems, still upright despite the snow and cold weather. I pull off one of the seed heads and break it apart, sprinkling the small, fluffy seeds on the snow behind a garden bench. Not a large or flashy flower, but a wonderful addition to the garden, demurely complementing whatever flowers might be in the neighborhood. They are not natives, but I can’t imagine an English garden without them.
• As one would expect, the snow on the north side of the garden–which catches the morning sunlight–is melting faster than on the south side. The north side yews have lost all their snow.
• The fruit on all the large flowering crab are gone, eaten by birds visiting in the late fall. One exception is the espalier apple tree, which has retained several small red apples (though distinctly larger than the apples on the older trees).
• Today, I didn’t see a single bird in the garden. I’m curious why the birds ignore the yews. Although these evergreens can be poisonous to some larger animals–such as cows and horses–I’m not aware they offer any danger to birds. I would think the yews could render some protective warmth for small birds, but their dense greenery appears to offer no appeal. I have come across several bird nests in the flowering crab, but I’ve never seen a nest in the yews.
• I have left all the baptisia (the false indigo) standing. Although not conventionally pretty, I am attracted to their gray winter stems and brittle leaves. And most of them remain unbowed through the winter. Thankfully, they are easy to clean up in the spring, the 3-4' stems easily breaking off from their root systems. No pruning required.
• The afternoon sky is cloudless, allowing the sun to create beautifully projected phantoms across the snowfield. I’m struck by the exquisite design of a crab apple’s shadow, stretching beyond the fountain. Meanwhile the Alumni House’s shadow slowly glides across the quad, as does my own shadow, having grown five or more feet in the past 20 minutes. The sun is now just a few degrees above the western horizon. It’s time to go in and type these notes.