Monday Morning Garden Report:
20 December 2021
This morning I worked at home, finishing a couple of website postings, and this afternoon put in four hours at the Coe garden. It was chilly, with a NW breeze. At 4:00 p.m., the thermometer in the garden shed recorded an outdoor temp of 38F; in the gazebo, which captures the sun’s mid-day heat, the temp was in the low 40s. But the garden was already draped in the shade of the Alumni House, and it soon began to feel much colder. When I left an hour later, my fingers were no long fully functional. All things considered, however, it was an ideal day for gardening on the eve of the winter solstice.
Most of my garden work concentrated on the “G” bed wood chip path. I weeded it with some care, removing unwanted vegetation except for a short stretch under the pergola, just before the path connects with the gravel walkway. Some weeding involved digging up river oats that had escaped the rain garden. That grass quickly establishes a dense clump of roots that do not give up easily, and I left several growing through a layer of rocks where the wood chip path leads into the rain garden. In the rain garden, I took a detour and cut back some phlox, lobelia, hyssop, river oats, ironweed, and iris–as well as digging out unwanted sedge, grasses, horsetail, swamp milkweed, and ox-eye daisies. I was surprised to encounter a long, wandering wisteria vine I had missed when trimming the pergola’s wisteria earlier this fall.
One major job left undone was digging up and transplanting the astilbe in the NE corner of the rain garden. Although the astilbe hybrids have done well in the rain garden’s moist, humus-rich soil, they can’t compete with the more aggressive river oats (Chasmanthium latifolium), and I’ve decided to let the river oats own that area. The native grass provides many aesthetic and ecological benefits, particularly in the fall and winter months, and the astilbe deserve a new home. Unfortunately, I can’t decide where that new home should be. They need protection from the mid-summer heat and they prefer an organic soil that can remain relatively moist and friable–conditions the rain garden offers. On the berm above the rain garden is a small patch of astilbe that has done reasonably well–though they are temporarily overrun with hyssop and swamp milkweed. I’m inclined to move the astilbe into the west end of that berm, transplanting them in the late spring after the daffodils have finished blooming. The astilbe should complement the berm’s other summer-time perennials–several ferns, the Dark Tower penstemons, a Siberian iris, a patch of Brunnera, and a couple of Jacob’s ladders.
Once I had the wood chip path weeded, I moved 3 wheelbarrow loads of wood chips from the pickup: one load to finish covering the path in the “H” bed (which I worked on over the weekend) and the other two loads for the “G” bed. Normally by this late in December my 1988 Chevy S-10 pickup is in winter storage. As a lightweight truck without front wheel drive and no snow tires, it does not like icy, snow-covered roads. But this year we are on track to reach the end of December with no measurable snowfall, and this has enabled me to keep hauling mulch and hardwood chips: 10 cubic yards in the last four weeks, one cubic yard per round trip from Ever-Green Nursery on Center Point Road. A yard of mulch or chips is just the right size and weight for my little red pickup, inherited from my Dad 26 years ago. A yard equals about eight wheelbarrow loads, which means that in the last month, I’ve made 80 round trips from pickup to garden.
Seven of those cubic yards have been the dark brown mulch that now covers most of the perennial flower beds. Because of the 2020 derecho, I was engaged in so many other post-disaster cleanup chores that I never found the time to spread any mulch last fall. The annual addition of mulch has been my primary strategy for enriching the garden’s soil. In most areas, the topsoil in the garden is almost 1" deeper than it was when I started working here in the summer of 2014, nearly all of that increase due to the additions of compost and mulch. Fortunately, because of this fall’s mild weather, I have managed to spread fresh mulch across most of the perennial flower beds. Two exceptions are the “I” and “K” beds on the north side of the garden, where I have left undisturbed many of the native, seed-rich native perennials (such as coneflowers, asters, and goldenrod) that provide food for birds visiting during the winter.
I would be remiss not to mention one other major accomplishment today. Several years ago when I installed a trash can at the garden’s NW gate, I secured it to the iron fence with a bungee cord. The cord lasted about two years before losing its bunginess–and I never bothered to provide a replacement. This fall the wind on several occasions had tipped over the trash can, and so I recently purchased a new bungee cord–without having the foresight to measure the can to ensure the cord was the right size. Well, today I discovered luck was on my side. The new cord was fit perfectly, neatly securing the trash can to the fence. That should resolve the trash can issue for a couple of years. ~Bob
20 December 2021
This morning I worked at home, finishing a couple of website postings, and this afternoon put in four hours at the Coe garden. It was chilly, with a NW breeze. At 4:00 p.m., the thermometer in the garden shed recorded an outdoor temp of 38F; in the gazebo, which captures the sun’s mid-day heat, the temp was in the low 40s. But the garden was already draped in the shade of the Alumni House, and it soon began to feel much colder. When I left an hour later, my fingers were no long fully functional. All things considered, however, it was an ideal day for gardening on the eve of the winter solstice.
Most of my garden work concentrated on the “G” bed wood chip path. I weeded it with some care, removing unwanted vegetation except for a short stretch under the pergola, just before the path connects with the gravel walkway. Some weeding involved digging up river oats that had escaped the rain garden. That grass quickly establishes a dense clump of roots that do not give up easily, and I left several growing through a layer of rocks where the wood chip path leads into the rain garden. In the rain garden, I took a detour and cut back some phlox, lobelia, hyssop, river oats, ironweed, and iris–as well as digging out unwanted sedge, grasses, horsetail, swamp milkweed, and ox-eye daisies. I was surprised to encounter a long, wandering wisteria vine I had missed when trimming the pergola’s wisteria earlier this fall.
One major job left undone was digging up and transplanting the astilbe in the NE corner of the rain garden. Although the astilbe hybrids have done well in the rain garden’s moist, humus-rich soil, they can’t compete with the more aggressive river oats (Chasmanthium latifolium), and I’ve decided to let the river oats own that area. The native grass provides many aesthetic and ecological benefits, particularly in the fall and winter months, and the astilbe deserve a new home. Unfortunately, I can’t decide where that new home should be. They need protection from the mid-summer heat and they prefer an organic soil that can remain relatively moist and friable–conditions the rain garden offers. On the berm above the rain garden is a small patch of astilbe that has done reasonably well–though they are temporarily overrun with hyssop and swamp milkweed. I’m inclined to move the astilbe into the west end of that berm, transplanting them in the late spring after the daffodils have finished blooming. The astilbe should complement the berm’s other summer-time perennials–several ferns, the Dark Tower penstemons, a Siberian iris, a patch of Brunnera, and a couple of Jacob’s ladders.
Once I had the wood chip path weeded, I moved 3 wheelbarrow loads of wood chips from the pickup: one load to finish covering the path in the “H” bed (which I worked on over the weekend) and the other two loads for the “G” bed. Normally by this late in December my 1988 Chevy S-10 pickup is in winter storage. As a lightweight truck without front wheel drive and no snow tires, it does not like icy, snow-covered roads. But this year we are on track to reach the end of December with no measurable snowfall, and this has enabled me to keep hauling mulch and hardwood chips: 10 cubic yards in the last four weeks, one cubic yard per round trip from Ever-Green Nursery on Center Point Road. A yard of mulch or chips is just the right size and weight for my little red pickup, inherited from my Dad 26 years ago. A yard equals about eight wheelbarrow loads, which means that in the last month, I’ve made 80 round trips from pickup to garden.
Seven of those cubic yards have been the dark brown mulch that now covers most of the perennial flower beds. Because of the 2020 derecho, I was engaged in so many other post-disaster cleanup chores that I never found the time to spread any mulch last fall. The annual addition of mulch has been my primary strategy for enriching the garden’s soil. In most areas, the topsoil in the garden is almost 1" deeper than it was when I started working here in the summer of 2014, nearly all of that increase due to the additions of compost and mulch. Fortunately, because of this fall’s mild weather, I have managed to spread fresh mulch across most of the perennial flower beds. Two exceptions are the “I” and “K” beds on the north side of the garden, where I have left undisturbed many of the native, seed-rich native perennials (such as coneflowers, asters, and goldenrod) that provide food for birds visiting during the winter.
I would be remiss not to mention one other major accomplishment today. Several years ago when I installed a trash can at the garden’s NW gate, I secured it to the iron fence with a bungee cord. The cord lasted about two years before losing its bunginess–and I never bothered to provide a replacement. This fall the wind on several occasions had tipped over the trash can, and so I recently purchased a new bungee cord–without having the foresight to measure the can to ensure the cord was the right size. Well, today I discovered luck was on my side. The new cord was fit perfectly, neatly securing the trash can to the fence. That should resolve the trash can issue for a couple of years. ~Bob
Monday Morning Garden Report: 13 December 2021
Now that Fall Term Finals are over, most students have left campus, most faculty will be working at home, the gates on the Garden will remain locked, and I have the garden to myself. We’ll probably open up in late February, whenever the spring-flowering bulbs initiate their bloom business. Last week in the “C” bed we had our first spring flower: a single snowdrop (see photo at the end of this report). Perhaps confused by unseasonably warm weather, it produced a lovely little white bloom, with those delicate green dots at the end of the inner petals. It’s remarkable how much pleasure can come from seeing one small white flower, less than 2" tall, appearing unexpectedly in a terrain dominated by this year’s exhausted, desiccated plants.
Today I concentrated on cleaning up the “C” & “L” beds in front of the patio. Neither bed has received much care the past year, and it has been two years since they received fresh mulch. Before covering the soil with the dark brown shredded wood, I removed old foliage, dug up various weeds and grasses, and pruned a few perennials. The most pleasurable task was cutting back several mounds of catmint along the east-side borders of both flower beds. I’m a devoted fan of the catmint, unfazed by drought or cold weather. They started blooming in the middle of the spring and were still in bloom six months later. Their primary drawback is their exuberant growth, which necessitates that they be cut back 2-3 times a year. The pruning task, however, is very pleasant, an enticing fragrance surrounding me as I gather up the old stems and leaves.
Every year while doing a late-fall upkeep of the “L” bed, I’m always surprised at how much fresh, spring-like foliage I encounter. The bed has over two dozen plants that enter the winter months with new leaves ready for the spring:
• Catmint
• Tall Stonecrop (There are small buds of fresh foliage at the base of each plant; I left most of the summer’s stems and seed heads until spring pruning, the coppery-brown seeds elegantly balanced on the hollow but sturdy stems that remain erect even in a heavy snowfall.)
• Grape Hyacinths (After completely disappearing in the summer, the green leaves re-emerge in the fall; I should plant more grape hyacinths to help mark where other spring bulbs are planted.)
• Betony (Two Stachys macrantha planted five years ago at the front of the “L” bed; each betony has slowly expanded its width without requiring any grooming or attention; they are in the same genus as the Helene von Stein wooly betony–i.e., lamb’s ear–which has foliage and flowers that look so different but they share a common toughness.)
• Love-in-a-Mist (There are hundreds of baby Nigela damescena seedlings covering the southwest corner of the “L” bed; because these annual self-seeders are so thick, that’s one area that I don’t cover with the wood mulch.)
• Allium (Most of the ornamental onions are still in hiding–with the exception of several Allium Schubertii, the tumbleweed onion--but one of this year’s allium has apparently produced fertile seeds; the middle of the “L” bed has hundreds of baby allium, creating what looks like a field of tiny chives; I did cover the area with mulch, assuming these allium could push their way through such an impediment.)
• Daylilies (A few of the daylilies have generated fresh growth this fall, and when I removed the dead foliage from a Stella d’oro, I found two flower buds.)
• Barren Strawberries ( Waldsteinia fragarioides, a thick, hardy groundcover that remains green throughout the year.)
• Cushion Spurge (One fall task is removing the old foliage of the Euphorbia polychroma, leaving in place a tight clump of new basal foliage ready for the spring.)
• Yarrow, Penstemon, Hollyhocks, Ox-Eye Daisies (These perennials produce foliage in the summer and fall that will often survive through the winter.)
• New England Asters, Goldenrod, Black-Eyed Susans (These members of the aster/sunflower family all produce clusters of green leaves at their base in preparation for early spring weather.)
• Sorrel, Creeping Charlie, Queen Anne’s Lace, Dandelion (All plants that I treat like weeds, though I have a special fondness for Queen Anne’s Lace; I don’t mind a few of their lovely white blooms appearing at the back of several flower beds; however, I am less sympathetic about their presence in either of these perennial beds in front of the patio.)
• Daffodils and Summer Snowflakes (Dozens of daffodils and Leucojum aestivum have sent up their green periscopes, checking out the situation; the green spears of the Leucojum behind the NW bench survived most of the summer and after a short disappearance have vigorously re-appeared.)
• A Rose (I have been digging up and removing roots of old roses from the “L” bed for five years; today I encountered one single rose, about 1' tall, with a few reddish-green leaves; it had emerged by the side of a clump of Siberian iris; I admire the determination and resilience of this rose stock, but it has now been removed, giving the iris one less battle to fight.)
Now that Fall Term Finals are over, most students have left campus, most faculty will be working at home, the gates on the Garden will remain locked, and I have the garden to myself. We’ll probably open up in late February, whenever the spring-flowering bulbs initiate their bloom business. Last week in the “C” bed we had our first spring flower: a single snowdrop (see photo at the end of this report). Perhaps confused by unseasonably warm weather, it produced a lovely little white bloom, with those delicate green dots at the end of the inner petals. It’s remarkable how much pleasure can come from seeing one small white flower, less than 2" tall, appearing unexpectedly in a terrain dominated by this year’s exhausted, desiccated plants.
Today I concentrated on cleaning up the “C” & “L” beds in front of the patio. Neither bed has received much care the past year, and it has been two years since they received fresh mulch. Before covering the soil with the dark brown shredded wood, I removed old foliage, dug up various weeds and grasses, and pruned a few perennials. The most pleasurable task was cutting back several mounds of catmint along the east-side borders of both flower beds. I’m a devoted fan of the catmint, unfazed by drought or cold weather. They started blooming in the middle of the spring and were still in bloom six months later. Their primary drawback is their exuberant growth, which necessitates that they be cut back 2-3 times a year. The pruning task, however, is very pleasant, an enticing fragrance surrounding me as I gather up the old stems and leaves.
Every year while doing a late-fall upkeep of the “L” bed, I’m always surprised at how much fresh, spring-like foliage I encounter. The bed has over two dozen plants that enter the winter months with new leaves ready for the spring:
• Catmint
• Tall Stonecrop (There are small buds of fresh foliage at the base of each plant; I left most of the summer’s stems and seed heads until spring pruning, the coppery-brown seeds elegantly balanced on the hollow but sturdy stems that remain erect even in a heavy snowfall.)
• Grape Hyacinths (After completely disappearing in the summer, the green leaves re-emerge in the fall; I should plant more grape hyacinths to help mark where other spring bulbs are planted.)
• Betony (Two Stachys macrantha planted five years ago at the front of the “L” bed; each betony has slowly expanded its width without requiring any grooming or attention; they are in the same genus as the Helene von Stein wooly betony–i.e., lamb’s ear–which has foliage and flowers that look so different but they share a common toughness.)
• Love-in-a-Mist (There are hundreds of baby Nigela damescena seedlings covering the southwest corner of the “L” bed; because these annual self-seeders are so thick, that’s one area that I don’t cover with the wood mulch.)
• Allium (Most of the ornamental onions are still in hiding–with the exception of several Allium Schubertii, the tumbleweed onion--but one of this year’s allium has apparently produced fertile seeds; the middle of the “L” bed has hundreds of baby allium, creating what looks like a field of tiny chives; I did cover the area with mulch, assuming these allium could push their way through such an impediment.)
• Daylilies (A few of the daylilies have generated fresh growth this fall, and when I removed the dead foliage from a Stella d’oro, I found two flower buds.)
• Barren Strawberries ( Waldsteinia fragarioides, a thick, hardy groundcover that remains green throughout the year.)
• Cushion Spurge (One fall task is removing the old foliage of the Euphorbia polychroma, leaving in place a tight clump of new basal foliage ready for the spring.)
• Yarrow, Penstemon, Hollyhocks, Ox-Eye Daisies (These perennials produce foliage in the summer and fall that will often survive through the winter.)
• New England Asters, Goldenrod, Black-Eyed Susans (These members of the aster/sunflower family all produce clusters of green leaves at their base in preparation for early spring weather.)
• Sorrel, Creeping Charlie, Queen Anne’s Lace, Dandelion (All plants that I treat like weeds, though I have a special fondness for Queen Anne’s Lace; I don’t mind a few of their lovely white blooms appearing at the back of several flower beds; however, I am less sympathetic about their presence in either of these perennial beds in front of the patio.)
• Daffodils and Summer Snowflakes (Dozens of daffodils and Leucojum aestivum have sent up their green periscopes, checking out the situation; the green spears of the Leucojum behind the NW bench survived most of the summer and after a short disappearance have vigorously re-appeared.)
• A Rose (I have been digging up and removing roots of old roses from the “L” bed for five years; today I encountered one single rose, about 1' tall, with a few reddish-green leaves; it had emerged by the side of a clump of Siberian iris; I admire the determination and resilience of this rose stock, but it has now been removed, giving the iris one less battle to fight.)
Monday Morning Garden Report: 15 November 2021
When I arrived at the garden this morning, the sky was overcast, temperature in the upper 30s with enough breeze to make it feel like the 20s. On Sunday the wind had thrown around a stack of plastic baskets and overturned a small plant stand. Once I had those items back in their assigned positions and completed other housekeeping chores, I turned up the heat in the garden shed, unpacked my Canon G3X camera, and began a leisurely 45-minute walk around the garden.
As I stood in front of the Alumni House patio, surveying the garden, I was struck by how gracefully the garden had slipped into a late autumn mode, consolidating its resources in preparation for the winter. The crab apple trees have lost nearly all their leaves. Some red fruit are still hanging on, dessert for a small flock of sparrows, but the trees are reduced to their lean skeletons, offering minimal resistance to the northwest wind. Last week the two viburnum flanking the entrance into the lawn area were covered with a lovely blend of red and brownish-orange leaves. Today just a few leaves remain.
The entire garden has shifted toward a grayish-brown palette, but each bed still has its appealing attractions. My attention is frequently drawn to the ornamental grasses. In multiple beds there are the miscanthus cultivars, their white seedheads responding to the gentlest breeze. Last year we added a variegated miscanthus in the “L” bed to complement a yellow-striped miscanthus in the “C” bed. The new miscanthus is determined to grow much taller than advertised, but at least for this year it serves as an attractive new partner, adding a vertical energy to that bed in front of the terrace.
In the northeast corner of the garden, in front of the gazebo, are five recently planted clumps of North Sky switch grass. In another year or two, these clumps should reach five tall and provide an attractive background to the other plants in that flower bed, echoing the miscanthus closer to the pergola. On the other side of the pergola, now dominating half of the rain garden, are the river oats and their beautiful arrow-shaped seedheads. The river oats create serious management problems because of their proclivity to disburse fertile seeds in parts of the garden where they are not wanted, but I find them a splendid addition to the fall and winter garden. Other attractive grasses in the garden include the purple love grass (Eragrostis spectabilis) in a corner of the “K” bed and the Pennisetum fountain grass next to the gazing ball on the opposite side of the garden. And I would be remiss if I didn’t include the two hydrangea shrubs with their attractive seedheads in the “G” and “H” beds.
But at this time of the year, my attention is frequently attracted to plants in the aster/sunflower family. The garden now has hundreds of coneflower seedheads, each unique in their spiral seed arrangements illustrating the Fibonacci golden ratio. The black-eyed Susan seeds are arranged in a similarly efficient pattern, but those dark seedheads are more tightly fisted, rarely with any missing seeds before the arrival of winter. The garden’s birds are more attracted to the larger coneflower seeds. I also took several photographs of the New England and aromatic aster seedheads. These delicate-looking white fuzzballs are much smaller than the coneflowers, and I often have difficulty convincing my camera to focus on an individual seedhead. But I keep trying, hoping at least one photo will capture their elegant beauty. I also find it a challenge to photograph the brown seedheads of the tall verbena (Verbena bonariensis). [See photo of aster seedheads at the end of this report.]
Of course, I don’t find all seedheads as aesthetically elegant as the asters and sunflowers. For example, the frozen, desiccated kniphofia seedhead is slumped over, displaying no resistance to freezing temperatures. I was surprised this red hot poker in the “D” bed produced another yellow and orange bloom in late October. We’ve never had a kniphofia bloom so late in the year. The foliage now needs to be cut back, but I’m glad we waited until after the plant managed another bloom cycle. In the rain garden, the turtleheads are another plant with its stack of seed clusters that to my eye don't appear aesthetically appealing. Nevertheless, I took several photos of the turtlehead seed spikes and the orange-brown foliage, trusting the photos will help me appreciate something I’m missing.
Scattered through the garden are also several plants that depend on their foliage to insure the gardener does not pull them up and cast them into exile. In this group are the Helene von Stein lambs ears (Stachys byzantina in the “D” and “K” beds), the Husker Red and Dark Tower penstemons (found in almost every bed in the garden), all of the hellebores (whose foliage remains reasonably green and fresh-looking into the winter), the two large yarrow patches in front of the patio, the beautiful red mounds of the bloody cranesbill (that for a few weeks suggest a miniature forest of red maple leaves), and the snow-in-summer (who relish the cold weather, their silver-tinted leaves looking much happier than during the summer). And, of course, the evergreen yews and arbor vita: it is easy to forget the architectural stability they provide the garden in all four seasons. ~Bob
When I arrived at the garden this morning, the sky was overcast, temperature in the upper 30s with enough breeze to make it feel like the 20s. On Sunday the wind had thrown around a stack of plastic baskets and overturned a small plant stand. Once I had those items back in their assigned positions and completed other housekeeping chores, I turned up the heat in the garden shed, unpacked my Canon G3X camera, and began a leisurely 45-minute walk around the garden.
As I stood in front of the Alumni House patio, surveying the garden, I was struck by how gracefully the garden had slipped into a late autumn mode, consolidating its resources in preparation for the winter. The crab apple trees have lost nearly all their leaves. Some red fruit are still hanging on, dessert for a small flock of sparrows, but the trees are reduced to their lean skeletons, offering minimal resistance to the northwest wind. Last week the two viburnum flanking the entrance into the lawn area were covered with a lovely blend of red and brownish-orange leaves. Today just a few leaves remain.
The entire garden has shifted toward a grayish-brown palette, but each bed still has its appealing attractions. My attention is frequently drawn to the ornamental grasses. In multiple beds there are the miscanthus cultivars, their white seedheads responding to the gentlest breeze. Last year we added a variegated miscanthus in the “L” bed to complement a yellow-striped miscanthus in the “C” bed. The new miscanthus is determined to grow much taller than advertised, but at least for this year it serves as an attractive new partner, adding a vertical energy to that bed in front of the terrace.
In the northeast corner of the garden, in front of the gazebo, are five recently planted clumps of North Sky switch grass. In another year or two, these clumps should reach five tall and provide an attractive background to the other plants in that flower bed, echoing the miscanthus closer to the pergola. On the other side of the pergola, now dominating half of the rain garden, are the river oats and their beautiful arrow-shaped seedheads. The river oats create serious management problems because of their proclivity to disburse fertile seeds in parts of the garden where they are not wanted, but I find them a splendid addition to the fall and winter garden. Other attractive grasses in the garden include the purple love grass (Eragrostis spectabilis) in a corner of the “K” bed and the Pennisetum fountain grass next to the gazing ball on the opposite side of the garden. And I would be remiss if I didn’t include the two hydrangea shrubs with their attractive seedheads in the “G” and “H” beds.
But at this time of the year, my attention is frequently attracted to plants in the aster/sunflower family. The garden now has hundreds of coneflower seedheads, each unique in their spiral seed arrangements illustrating the Fibonacci golden ratio. The black-eyed Susan seeds are arranged in a similarly efficient pattern, but those dark seedheads are more tightly fisted, rarely with any missing seeds before the arrival of winter. The garden’s birds are more attracted to the larger coneflower seeds. I also took several photographs of the New England and aromatic aster seedheads. These delicate-looking white fuzzballs are much smaller than the coneflowers, and I often have difficulty convincing my camera to focus on an individual seedhead. But I keep trying, hoping at least one photo will capture their elegant beauty. I also find it a challenge to photograph the brown seedheads of the tall verbena (Verbena bonariensis). [See photo of aster seedheads at the end of this report.]
Of course, I don’t find all seedheads as aesthetically elegant as the asters and sunflowers. For example, the frozen, desiccated kniphofia seedhead is slumped over, displaying no resistance to freezing temperatures. I was surprised this red hot poker in the “D” bed produced another yellow and orange bloom in late October. We’ve never had a kniphofia bloom so late in the year. The foliage now needs to be cut back, but I’m glad we waited until after the plant managed another bloom cycle. In the rain garden, the turtleheads are another plant with its stack of seed clusters that to my eye don't appear aesthetically appealing. Nevertheless, I took several photos of the turtlehead seed spikes and the orange-brown foliage, trusting the photos will help me appreciate something I’m missing.
Scattered through the garden are also several plants that depend on their foliage to insure the gardener does not pull them up and cast them into exile. In this group are the Helene von Stein lambs ears (Stachys byzantina in the “D” and “K” beds), the Husker Red and Dark Tower penstemons (found in almost every bed in the garden), all of the hellebores (whose foliage remains reasonably green and fresh-looking into the winter), the two large yarrow patches in front of the patio, the beautiful red mounds of the bloody cranesbill (that for a few weeks suggest a miniature forest of red maple leaves), and the snow-in-summer (who relish the cold weather, their silver-tinted leaves looking much happier than during the summer). And, of course, the evergreen yews and arbor vita: it is easy to forget the architectural stability they provide the garden in all four seasons. ~Bob
Monday Morning Garden Report: 1 November 2021
I’ve lived in Iowa for 43 years, and I believe this is the first time we have reached All Saints Day and several tender flowers are still in bloom. We are probably headed for a serious freeze this evening, but today the large yellow blooms on the Kevin Floodlight dahlia and the fragrant white blooms on the peacock orchids (Gladiolus acidanthera) are still looking great. The pleasure of their morning cheer was soon sullied, however, when I walked into the gazebo to check the early morning temperature and discovered the thermometer on the west wall had been stolen. Perhaps the theft was premeditated, because the screws securing the thermometer to the wall had been unscrewed and not simply yanked free of the cedar stud. The garden has no security cameras and even when the gates are locked, it’s relatively easy for someone to climb over the fence. As an old stiff septuagenarian, even I have entered the garden by scaling the fence when the locks were frozen in the winter. Given the location of the garden near First Avenue, the ease of access, and the minimal security precautions, it’s remarkable how rarely the garden experiences any vandalism or theft. I liked the size and appearance of the thermometer, the right instrument for the space. Fortunately, it’s still available on-line, and I suspect by next Monday Amazon will have delivered its replacement. A minor expense, a minor hassle. What saddens me is that someone invaded this sanctuary and stole something that belonged in the garden. Gardens should not inspire such behaviors.
In addition to the thief, the garden had another visitor last night. On a limestone block at the back of the rock garden, there was a large clump of fresh scat, a moist brown turd, about the size of a misshapen tennis ball, full of undigested crab apples. It appeared that the animal had gulped down the tiny apples without chewing–and the fruit had passed through a digestive system that had minimal interest in doing anything with these freshly eaten morsels. At least the crab apples provided distinctive material for marking a trail across the rock garden terrain.
Later in the morning, I spent several minutes watching sparrow-like birds feeding in one of the flowering crab trees, which still have thousands of small, soft, reddish orange apples available for anyone with wings. I regret my bird species identification skills are woefully inadequate, though I think several house finches composed one group of feeders. Perhaps thirty years ago, Pete (a friend and avid bird watcher) and I spent an autumn morning walking around Bever Park. One of the birds we encountered was a house finch, which he informed me had in recent years significantly increased its numbers in Iowa. I regret that 99% of what Pete told me on our morning stroll has been forgotten, but his introduction to the house finch has stayed with me.
Later in the day, hordes of starlings and a solitary blue jay visited the crab apple trees. The feeding patterns of these larger birds were more hectic and restless than the sparrows and finches, the individuals jumping from limb to limb, never staying in one part of the tree for long. And then one member of the flock would take flight, heading toward the top of a tall maple tree outside the garden, and all his friends immediately followed him. Last week I was talking with the gentleman who looks after our family’s retirement accounts. He commented that he relies on his study of psychology for sensing when the stock market will rise or fall. Understanding the nature of human behavior is more important than understanding economic market theory. Humans buying and selling stocks are like birds eating a meal of crab apples. One starling heads north, for whatever unknown reason, and everyone else follows.
In November, the ornamental grasses are the key species in many of the perennial beds. I’m particularly enchanted with a large cluster of a 6' tall switch grass just north of the pergola. Unfortunately I don’t know the name of this switch grass. It was a donation from a friend, dug up and transplanted into the garden five years ago. The seed heads are a beautiful dark burgundy above the green leaves, and each year the clumps get bigger and bolder. Although they were just planted three weeks ago, I have high hopes the five clumps of Northwind switch grass will make an effective visual partner with the older switch grass. The Northwind should retain a more erect, vertical bearing. Perhaps in a year or two the 4' tall clumps will equal the height of the older switch grass.
While the grasses provide the garden's most effective unifying factor, my eyes inevitably gravitate to the plants that still have a few fresh-looking flowers: two newly opened peacock orchids, the white anemones south of the patio, the prolific tall verbena (Verbena Bonariensis), the remarkable Rozanne cranesbill (non-stop blooms since June), a few phlox, several mallow in the herb bed, a lone black-eyed Susan under the pergola, several yellow daylilies, and a single yellow and orange red hot poker along a gravel walkway south of the silent fountain (see photo at the end of this report). Yesterday, while trimming some of the verbena in the north dahlia bed, I came across a miniature New England aster, only 3-4" tall, with a tiny blue flower. How precious those unexpected gifts.
While the two switch grass cultivars may be sterile, that is certainly not the case with the northern sea oats in the rain garden. They are industrious self-seeders and the new plants quickly develop a tight fist of roots, fiercely gripping the soil around them. Even in relatively soft soil, they can be difficult to remove, and I have a lot of sea oats that need to be removed from under the south side of the pergola. As they have migrated to the pergola, they have also invaded a row of astilbe in the rain garden. Unless I remove all the sea oats, the only practical solution is to remove the astilbe and let the sea oats in that corner of the garden have free rein. (Or should it be “free reign”?) I hate to move the astilbe, but they are too mild-mannered to deal with the sea oats. Prior to the sea oats invasion, the astilbe flourished in that moist, sandy, humus-rich soil, doing much better than the astilbe colony next to the SW park bench. Even though the latter group is protected from the afternoon sun and has ample mulch, the soil still dries out too quickly in mid-summer and the plants shrivel away. They need to be dug up, the soil enriched with fresh compost and perhaps some chicken grit, and replanted. A job for next spring.
One job coming later this week will be quickly planting a shipment of ferns and flowers from Sooner Farms in Oklahoma. I recently made the mistake of opening one of their emails, advertising substantial discounts and free shipping on a wide assortment of their one-gallon plants, ones which they did not want to care for in their greenhouses over the winter. While it’s a gamble to order these plants so late in the year, I’ve usually had good luck with fall planting. The soil is still reasonably warm and the recent rains have made it easy to work with. I decided to take a chance.
I’ve lived in Iowa for 43 years, and I believe this is the first time we have reached All Saints Day and several tender flowers are still in bloom. We are probably headed for a serious freeze this evening, but today the large yellow blooms on the Kevin Floodlight dahlia and the fragrant white blooms on the peacock orchids (Gladiolus acidanthera) are still looking great. The pleasure of their morning cheer was soon sullied, however, when I walked into the gazebo to check the early morning temperature and discovered the thermometer on the west wall had been stolen. Perhaps the theft was premeditated, because the screws securing the thermometer to the wall had been unscrewed and not simply yanked free of the cedar stud. The garden has no security cameras and even when the gates are locked, it’s relatively easy for someone to climb over the fence. As an old stiff septuagenarian, even I have entered the garden by scaling the fence when the locks were frozen in the winter. Given the location of the garden near First Avenue, the ease of access, and the minimal security precautions, it’s remarkable how rarely the garden experiences any vandalism or theft. I liked the size and appearance of the thermometer, the right instrument for the space. Fortunately, it’s still available on-line, and I suspect by next Monday Amazon will have delivered its replacement. A minor expense, a minor hassle. What saddens me is that someone invaded this sanctuary and stole something that belonged in the garden. Gardens should not inspire such behaviors.
In addition to the thief, the garden had another visitor last night. On a limestone block at the back of the rock garden, there was a large clump of fresh scat, a moist brown turd, about the size of a misshapen tennis ball, full of undigested crab apples. It appeared that the animal had gulped down the tiny apples without chewing–and the fruit had passed through a digestive system that had minimal interest in doing anything with these freshly eaten morsels. At least the crab apples provided distinctive material for marking a trail across the rock garden terrain.
Later in the morning, I spent several minutes watching sparrow-like birds feeding in one of the flowering crab trees, which still have thousands of small, soft, reddish orange apples available for anyone with wings. I regret my bird species identification skills are woefully inadequate, though I think several house finches composed one group of feeders. Perhaps thirty years ago, Pete (a friend and avid bird watcher) and I spent an autumn morning walking around Bever Park. One of the birds we encountered was a house finch, which he informed me had in recent years significantly increased its numbers in Iowa. I regret that 99% of what Pete told me on our morning stroll has been forgotten, but his introduction to the house finch has stayed with me.
Later in the day, hordes of starlings and a solitary blue jay visited the crab apple trees. The feeding patterns of these larger birds were more hectic and restless than the sparrows and finches, the individuals jumping from limb to limb, never staying in one part of the tree for long. And then one member of the flock would take flight, heading toward the top of a tall maple tree outside the garden, and all his friends immediately followed him. Last week I was talking with the gentleman who looks after our family’s retirement accounts. He commented that he relies on his study of psychology for sensing when the stock market will rise or fall. Understanding the nature of human behavior is more important than understanding economic market theory. Humans buying and selling stocks are like birds eating a meal of crab apples. One starling heads north, for whatever unknown reason, and everyone else follows.
In November, the ornamental grasses are the key species in many of the perennial beds. I’m particularly enchanted with a large cluster of a 6' tall switch grass just north of the pergola. Unfortunately I don’t know the name of this switch grass. It was a donation from a friend, dug up and transplanted into the garden five years ago. The seed heads are a beautiful dark burgundy above the green leaves, and each year the clumps get bigger and bolder. Although they were just planted three weeks ago, I have high hopes the five clumps of Northwind switch grass will make an effective visual partner with the older switch grass. The Northwind should retain a more erect, vertical bearing. Perhaps in a year or two the 4' tall clumps will equal the height of the older switch grass.
While the grasses provide the garden's most effective unifying factor, my eyes inevitably gravitate to the plants that still have a few fresh-looking flowers: two newly opened peacock orchids, the white anemones south of the patio, the prolific tall verbena (Verbena Bonariensis), the remarkable Rozanne cranesbill (non-stop blooms since June), a few phlox, several mallow in the herb bed, a lone black-eyed Susan under the pergola, several yellow daylilies, and a single yellow and orange red hot poker along a gravel walkway south of the silent fountain (see photo at the end of this report). Yesterday, while trimming some of the verbena in the north dahlia bed, I came across a miniature New England aster, only 3-4" tall, with a tiny blue flower. How precious those unexpected gifts.
While the two switch grass cultivars may be sterile, that is certainly not the case with the northern sea oats in the rain garden. They are industrious self-seeders and the new plants quickly develop a tight fist of roots, fiercely gripping the soil around them. Even in relatively soft soil, they can be difficult to remove, and I have a lot of sea oats that need to be removed from under the south side of the pergola. As they have migrated to the pergola, they have also invaded a row of astilbe in the rain garden. Unless I remove all the sea oats, the only practical solution is to remove the astilbe and let the sea oats in that corner of the garden have free rein. (Or should it be “free reign”?) I hate to move the astilbe, but they are too mild-mannered to deal with the sea oats. Prior to the sea oats invasion, the astilbe flourished in that moist, sandy, humus-rich soil, doing much better than the astilbe colony next to the SW park bench. Even though the latter group is protected from the afternoon sun and has ample mulch, the soil still dries out too quickly in mid-summer and the plants shrivel away. They need to be dug up, the soil enriched with fresh compost and perhaps some chicken grit, and replanted. A job for next spring.
One job coming later this week will be quickly planting a shipment of ferns and flowers from Sooner Farms in Oklahoma. I recently made the mistake of opening one of their emails, advertising substantial discounts and free shipping on a wide assortment of their one-gallon plants, ones which they did not want to care for in their greenhouses over the winter. While it’s a gamble to order these plants so late in the year, I’ve usually had good luck with fall planting. The soil is still reasonably warm and the recent rains have made it easy to work with. I decided to take a chance.
Monday Morning Garden Report: 27 September 2021
Last night I watched a one-hour PBS documentary on Queen Elizabeth’s 42-acre garden behind Buckingham Palace. Since this private garden would rarely be visited by an ordinary American such as myself, the filmed version will need to suffice. The documentary did provide some marvelous time-lapse photos of flowers, several gossipy tidbits on the Royal Family’s occasional visits, and a few insights on the staff’s research projects. I was, however, disappointed on how little information was provided about the perennial flower beds and specific planting practices. One choice morsel I had not previously considered was the invaluable assistance from the nearby Royal Mews, which produces tons of horse manure for the Queen’s composting factory. Alas, the Coe garden has no horse stable, one of many reasons why our little English-inspired garden in Iowa will never quite measure up to the Palace’s impressive operation.
As I walked through the Coe garden this morning, I tried not to lament what we were lacking and focus on a few bright spots. It was immediately apparent that at this stage in the garden’s bloom cycle, the New England asters (Symphyotrichum novae-angliae) have asserted their supremacy as we transition from late summer into early fall. At least one erect clump of these tall asters can be seen in over a dozen of the garden’s flower beds. I had not previously noticed that these asters have petals with such diverse hues, mostly in the purple to magenta spectrum but also a few pinks. All these asters are the result of self-seeding, and I have no idea what accounts for such variations. They do all have the same yellow-orange centers, which turn to a brownish burgundy as they mature. In early summer I trimmed many of these asters, hoping to stimulate more blooms and reduce the likelihood of them growing too tall for their own good. Unfortunately I never trimmed the asters at the east end of the garden: some are doing well, but many have become top-heavy and are slumping over the paths and walkways.
When I started working in the garden in 2014, the New England asters had completely over-run the two rose beds in front of the patio. Since then I have been removing most of the asters that appear and all of the renegade rose bushes. The roses were not worth saving. I suspect they were the root stocks that had survived while their grafted partnerships had for some reason been terminated, probably by injudicious pruning or one or more cold winters. Now the roses are 99% gone, but the I have allowed the asters to retain some primary territory, mostly toward the back of the perennial flower beds. They have proven very resilient–and they are the Monarchs’ favorite nectar source at this time of the year.
While the New England asters are now the garden’s dominate flower, they are complemented by three other aster varieties. The common name for one of these asters is “false aster” (Boltonia asteroides). The Coe Garden’s lone cultivar, residing next to one of the raised herb beds, has 1" light blue daisy-like blooms on plants that have in the past grown 5-6' tall. After several years of vigorous growth and abundant blooms, last year’s Boltonia was much less prolific, and it is even less vigorous this year. I’ve read that Boltonia need to be periodically dug up, divided, and replanted. It’s clearly time for some such action to occur before it completely disappears.
In contrast to the Boltonia, the garden’s two aromatic asters (Symphyotrichum oblongifolium) planted several years ago in two perennial flower beds on the north and south side of the garden have never been more robust. Half the height of an untrimmed New England aster or false aster, this Midwest native features daisy-like flowers with intense, light blue petals and yellow centers. The leaves are small and reputed to have an aromatic fragrance when crushed, though I’ve never detected much of a smell. These asters are tough, durable, apparently unfazed by the summer drought. Despite their relatively short stature (2-3' tall), like many of their relatives they do tend to be floppy. In the past I’ve provided them with metal plant supports, and I need to return to that practice next year.
I am not certain about the identify of a third aster, a wild specimen that has popped up all over the garden this summer. Because of their abundant white blooms, I have allowed most of them to remain in place. In looking through several Midwest weed books, I thought this might be a native false aster, another Boltonia, but the blooms are much smaller than on the nursery-bred Boltonia. This summer’s garden has often depended on the distribution of these asters and other self-seeders to provide a substantial portion of the garden’s late summer and early fall bloom power: the asters, goldenrod, perennial sunflowers, purple coneflowers, black-eyed Susans, Joe Pye weeds, Queen Anne’s lace, plains coreopsis, and of course the dandelions and fleabane. With few exceptions, the garden in the spring is dominated by non-native imports: crocus, snowdrops, daffodils, tulips, iris, etc. But as the year progresses the flower power shifts to the natives–and particularly those who can rapidly expand their terrain because of their exuberant seed distribution (such as Queen Ann’s lace) or aggressive rhizomes (the goldenrod).
Photo Below: Fading New England Asters and a Welder's Flowers (October 2020)
Last night I watched a one-hour PBS documentary on Queen Elizabeth’s 42-acre garden behind Buckingham Palace. Since this private garden would rarely be visited by an ordinary American such as myself, the filmed version will need to suffice. The documentary did provide some marvelous time-lapse photos of flowers, several gossipy tidbits on the Royal Family’s occasional visits, and a few insights on the staff’s research projects. I was, however, disappointed on how little information was provided about the perennial flower beds and specific planting practices. One choice morsel I had not previously considered was the invaluable assistance from the nearby Royal Mews, which produces tons of horse manure for the Queen’s composting factory. Alas, the Coe garden has no horse stable, one of many reasons why our little English-inspired garden in Iowa will never quite measure up to the Palace’s impressive operation.
As I walked through the Coe garden this morning, I tried not to lament what we were lacking and focus on a few bright spots. It was immediately apparent that at this stage in the garden’s bloom cycle, the New England asters (Symphyotrichum novae-angliae) have asserted their supremacy as we transition from late summer into early fall. At least one erect clump of these tall asters can be seen in over a dozen of the garden’s flower beds. I had not previously noticed that these asters have petals with such diverse hues, mostly in the purple to magenta spectrum but also a few pinks. All these asters are the result of self-seeding, and I have no idea what accounts for such variations. They do all have the same yellow-orange centers, which turn to a brownish burgundy as they mature. In early summer I trimmed many of these asters, hoping to stimulate more blooms and reduce the likelihood of them growing too tall for their own good. Unfortunately I never trimmed the asters at the east end of the garden: some are doing well, but many have become top-heavy and are slumping over the paths and walkways.
When I started working in the garden in 2014, the New England asters had completely over-run the two rose beds in front of the patio. Since then I have been removing most of the asters that appear and all of the renegade rose bushes. The roses were not worth saving. I suspect they were the root stocks that had survived while their grafted partnerships had for some reason been terminated, probably by injudicious pruning or one or more cold winters. Now the roses are 99% gone, but the I have allowed the asters to retain some primary territory, mostly toward the back of the perennial flower beds. They have proven very resilient–and they are the Monarchs’ favorite nectar source at this time of the year.
While the New England asters are now the garden’s dominate flower, they are complemented by three other aster varieties. The common name for one of these asters is “false aster” (Boltonia asteroides). The Coe Garden’s lone cultivar, residing next to one of the raised herb beds, has 1" light blue daisy-like blooms on plants that have in the past grown 5-6' tall. After several years of vigorous growth and abundant blooms, last year’s Boltonia was much less prolific, and it is even less vigorous this year. I’ve read that Boltonia need to be periodically dug up, divided, and replanted. It’s clearly time for some such action to occur before it completely disappears.
In contrast to the Boltonia, the garden’s two aromatic asters (Symphyotrichum oblongifolium) planted several years ago in two perennial flower beds on the north and south side of the garden have never been more robust. Half the height of an untrimmed New England aster or false aster, this Midwest native features daisy-like flowers with intense, light blue petals and yellow centers. The leaves are small and reputed to have an aromatic fragrance when crushed, though I’ve never detected much of a smell. These asters are tough, durable, apparently unfazed by the summer drought. Despite their relatively short stature (2-3' tall), like many of their relatives they do tend to be floppy. In the past I’ve provided them with metal plant supports, and I need to return to that practice next year.
I am not certain about the identify of a third aster, a wild specimen that has popped up all over the garden this summer. Because of their abundant white blooms, I have allowed most of them to remain in place. In looking through several Midwest weed books, I thought this might be a native false aster, another Boltonia, but the blooms are much smaller than on the nursery-bred Boltonia. This summer’s garden has often depended on the distribution of these asters and other self-seeders to provide a substantial portion of the garden’s late summer and early fall bloom power: the asters, goldenrod, perennial sunflowers, purple coneflowers, black-eyed Susans, Joe Pye weeds, Queen Anne’s lace, plains coreopsis, and of course the dandelions and fleabane. With few exceptions, the garden in the spring is dominated by non-native imports: crocus, snowdrops, daffodils, tulips, iris, etc. But as the year progresses the flower power shifts to the natives–and particularly those who can rapidly expand their terrain because of their exuberant seed distribution (such as Queen Ann’s lace) or aggressive rhizomes (the goldenrod).
Photo Below: Fading New England Asters and a Welder's Flowers (October 2020)
Monday Morning Garden Report: 30 August 2021
This morning, when I unlocked the east garden gate, I began my garden work by again asking the garden for forgiveness. For almost two months, I had left the garden to care for itself, and while this floral guild is amazingly tough and resilient, it’s been a long, hot, dry, grueling summer. The garden could have used my assistance, but it was a period when I had to attend to other tasks, responsibilities overwhelmed by a three-week stretch of an unsought sore throat, congested sinuses, recurrent coughing spells, lack of energy, and inability to deal with mid-day sultry heat. Although I managed minor weeding and occasional spot watering, there was no serious mulching or composting or pruning or thorough irrigation. The gravel walkways were turned over to the weeds, the bindweed was allowed to run lawless through the viburnum, and the flowers had to fend for themselves.
But as has been true in the past, the garden proved resilient. Despite the difficult environmental conditions and the absence of a gardener’s engagement, the garden is bouncing back. The key factor has been the arrival of over 3" of rain in the last two weeks. The lawn has revived so quickly that it needs immediate mowing. Several plants that looked beyond resuscitation (for example, the buttercups and coral bells) are spewing forth new leaves. A large patch of desiccated lady’s mantle now reveals several small green shoots, pushing their way past the dried-out foliage.
The dahlia plants in the south-side “E” bed look strong and healthy, though I detect only one flower bud. The dahlias in the north-side bed are also far behind schedule in suggesting they intend to produce any blooms in the near future. As was true last year, it was June before I managed to plant the tubers. Next spring I need to jump-start the slumbering dahlias in pots so the plants are well-established when transplanted to the beds, I would hope by the middle of May.
While the dahlias in the north-side bed are languishing, the self-seeding flowers are thriving. The back half of the bed has a wonderful population of Verbena bonariensis, with dozens of small lavender flowers on tall terminal stems (see photo of a verbena at the conclusion of this report). The flowers serve as a frequent host for local bees and butterflies. Popular names for this flower include tall verbena, purpletop vervain, clustertop vervain, and Argentinian vervain. This verbena is a native of South America, and the species name “bonariensis” refers to its hometown of Buenos Aires, which I believe translates “good air.”
Another vigorous self-seeder in both the north and south-side dahlia beds is the plains coreopsis (Coreopsis tinctoria), commonly known as tickseed or calliopsis. Four years ago I started from seed a half-dozen plants, and now the garden is producing multitudes of these tough, drought-resistant plants, many eagerly growing in the nutrient-poor gravel walkways that surrounds the raised beds. Through the month of July these coreopsis provided a glorious mass of small yellow blooms with dark maroon centers. Once their mid-summer blooming peak was over, I pulled up most of the plants, but hundreds of their seeds have already germinated. Like love-in-a-mist, these fresh arrivals will most likely remain small and quietly hunker down. Many will be terminated when I plant the tulips in October and November. But some will be lucky, survive the winter, and in the spring re-start their seed-production cycle.
The north-side dahlia bed also has mixed in with the coreopsis (and a huge number of purslane and creeping spurge) a few annual Nigella damascena--another flower with a multitude of popular names, including “love-in-a-mist” and “devil in the bush.” But the major self-seeding flower in this bed is the Cleome hassleriana. As with the Verbena, Coreopsis, and Nigella, these tall Cleomes were never intentionally planted in this bed. But for several years they have been dependable self-seeders in the Crevice Garden, and last summer a few of these spider flowers popped up in this dahlia bed. A year later their number has doubled, and they are now spread across the eastern half of the flower bed.
This morning, when I unlocked the east garden gate, I began my garden work by again asking the garden for forgiveness. For almost two months, I had left the garden to care for itself, and while this floral guild is amazingly tough and resilient, it’s been a long, hot, dry, grueling summer. The garden could have used my assistance, but it was a period when I had to attend to other tasks, responsibilities overwhelmed by a three-week stretch of an unsought sore throat, congested sinuses, recurrent coughing spells, lack of energy, and inability to deal with mid-day sultry heat. Although I managed minor weeding and occasional spot watering, there was no serious mulching or composting or pruning or thorough irrigation. The gravel walkways were turned over to the weeds, the bindweed was allowed to run lawless through the viburnum, and the flowers had to fend for themselves.
But as has been true in the past, the garden proved resilient. Despite the difficult environmental conditions and the absence of a gardener’s engagement, the garden is bouncing back. The key factor has been the arrival of over 3" of rain in the last two weeks. The lawn has revived so quickly that it needs immediate mowing. Several plants that looked beyond resuscitation (for example, the buttercups and coral bells) are spewing forth new leaves. A large patch of desiccated lady’s mantle now reveals several small green shoots, pushing their way past the dried-out foliage.
The dahlia plants in the south-side “E” bed look strong and healthy, though I detect only one flower bud. The dahlias in the north-side bed are also far behind schedule in suggesting they intend to produce any blooms in the near future. As was true last year, it was June before I managed to plant the tubers. Next spring I need to jump-start the slumbering dahlias in pots so the plants are well-established when transplanted to the beds, I would hope by the middle of May.
While the dahlias in the north-side bed are languishing, the self-seeding flowers are thriving. The back half of the bed has a wonderful population of Verbena bonariensis, with dozens of small lavender flowers on tall terminal stems (see photo of a verbena at the conclusion of this report). The flowers serve as a frequent host for local bees and butterflies. Popular names for this flower include tall verbena, purpletop vervain, clustertop vervain, and Argentinian vervain. This verbena is a native of South America, and the species name “bonariensis” refers to its hometown of Buenos Aires, which I believe translates “good air.”
Another vigorous self-seeder in both the north and south-side dahlia beds is the plains coreopsis (Coreopsis tinctoria), commonly known as tickseed or calliopsis. Four years ago I started from seed a half-dozen plants, and now the garden is producing multitudes of these tough, drought-resistant plants, many eagerly growing in the nutrient-poor gravel walkways that surrounds the raised beds. Through the month of July these coreopsis provided a glorious mass of small yellow blooms with dark maroon centers. Once their mid-summer blooming peak was over, I pulled up most of the plants, but hundreds of their seeds have already germinated. Like love-in-a-mist, these fresh arrivals will most likely remain small and quietly hunker down. Many will be terminated when I plant the tulips in October and November. But some will be lucky, survive the winter, and in the spring re-start their seed-production cycle.
The north-side dahlia bed also has mixed in with the coreopsis (and a huge number of purslane and creeping spurge) a few annual Nigella damascena--another flower with a multitude of popular names, including “love-in-a-mist” and “devil in the bush.” But the major self-seeding flower in this bed is the Cleome hassleriana. As with the Verbena, Coreopsis, and Nigella, these tall Cleomes were never intentionally planted in this bed. But for several years they have been dependable self-seeders in the Crevice Garden, and last summer a few of these spider flowers popped up in this dahlia bed. A year later their number has doubled, and they are now spread across the eastern half of the flower bed.
Monday Morning Garden Report: 16 August 2021
Despite today’s lovely weather (temperature in the 70s, low humidity), the stress of the summer is easily apparent. The garden looks tired, exhausted, in most areas bone dry. The water sprinklers for the lawn were turned on over a week ago, so most of the lawn is beginning to revive. That also means the crabgrass, sedge, spurge, other unwelcome weeds are also rejuvenated. The crabgrass has become particularly aggressive, and we’ll need to spend many hours pulling it up, sending these pests to the compost bins.
Most of the perennial flower beds do not obtain any moisture from the sprinklers and have only received about 1" of rain since June. The flower beds around the central quad did receive a thorough watering in June, but since then they have been on their own. One reason for my negligence is that I had a relentless head cold in July that zapped all my strength for over two weeks. I could work in the mornings until about 10:00 and in the evenings after supper, but I did not have the resilience to deal with the midday heat and humidity. When it came to choosing between my vegetable garden or the Alumni House Garden, I chose the former, hoping the garden’s perennials and hardy annuals would find some way to persevere. There are, thank goodness, a few bright spots in the garden:
• The Black-Eyed Susans look great at the east end of the garden, providing a colorful, textured landscape similar in impact to the ox-eye daisies in the spring. In both cases I’ve done nothing but let them spread across those perennial beds surrounding the pergola.
• The Plains Coreopsis in the “E” bed on the south side of the garden provide a similar color scheme with the yellow petals surrounding dark brown-burgundy centers. These self-seeding annuals in the “J” bed on the opposite side of the fountain had all gone to seed so I pulled them out, but their brothers and sisters in the “E” bed remain rich with blooms.
• The large red blooms on the two giant Hibiscus plants on either side of the pergola provide a welcome tropical touch to the garden. In previous years the hibiscus blooms have been a powerful magnet for the Japanese beetles, but this year their total numbers have been quite small, and I have not seen a single beetle in any of the hibiscus blooms.
• North of the hibiscus are two patches of Autumn Minaret daylilies, with blooms on stalks over 6' high. Because of the hot dry weather, most daylilies quit blooming several weeks ago, but these late-season bloomers have stayed with their regular schedule. There are also a few Frans Hals daylily blooms in the “C” bed directly in front of the Alumni House patio.
• In front of the tall daylilies in the “I” bed is an expanding patch of Salvia azurea, a native of the Midwest plains with small light-blue flowers just beginning to emerge. Nearby is a large Russian sage, labeled as Perovskia atriplicifolia when I purchased it, but I believe it has recently been re-classified as a salvia. Regardless of the name, it is a tough, powerful plant, covered with an impressive bouquet of small blue flowers.
• On two occasions in the last week I’ve given visitors a few Verbena bonariensis. They have spread to several areas in the garden, and their small purple blooms are a favorite landing area for the garden’s Monarchs. This morning, while sitting in the gazebo, I watched three Monarchs visiting the dozens of tall verbena surrounding the flower bed sundial.
• Several of the Joe Pye weeds have struggled with the drought and have required serious watering, but they are all in bloom and provide an important structural foundation for many areas in the garden. Particularly notable is the large patch of Joe Pye weed near the NE park bench, with dozens of Joe Pye clustered together, double the area they were occupying five years ago.
• The ornamental grasses are doing their job, functioning as structural focal points while also ensuring the garden continues to have a texture and visual richness even in these moments when the garden’s flowers are fading. Particularly notable are the two clumps of big bluestem on either side of the NE bench, the variegated miscanthus in the “C” and “L”, the large clump of miscanthus in the “K” bed, the bunny tail grass in “D”, the Sioux Blue Indian grass and the Karl Foerster fountain grass in “F,” the river oats in the rain garden, the hakonechloa and purple love grass in the “K” bed, and the various switch grasses throughout the garden.
• It’s easy to forget that several key species in the garden quietly keep doing their thing, requiring no attention, apparently undaunted by the summer’s drought: the yews around the garden's outer perimeter, the peonies, the Baptisia, all providing an important visual coherence for so much of what happens in the middle and front of these flower beds.
Despite today’s lovely weather (temperature in the 70s, low humidity), the stress of the summer is easily apparent. The garden looks tired, exhausted, in most areas bone dry. The water sprinklers for the lawn were turned on over a week ago, so most of the lawn is beginning to revive. That also means the crabgrass, sedge, spurge, other unwelcome weeds are also rejuvenated. The crabgrass has become particularly aggressive, and we’ll need to spend many hours pulling it up, sending these pests to the compost bins.
Most of the perennial flower beds do not obtain any moisture from the sprinklers and have only received about 1" of rain since June. The flower beds around the central quad did receive a thorough watering in June, but since then they have been on their own. One reason for my negligence is that I had a relentless head cold in July that zapped all my strength for over two weeks. I could work in the mornings until about 10:00 and in the evenings after supper, but I did not have the resilience to deal with the midday heat and humidity. When it came to choosing between my vegetable garden or the Alumni House Garden, I chose the former, hoping the garden’s perennials and hardy annuals would find some way to persevere. There are, thank goodness, a few bright spots in the garden:
• The Black-Eyed Susans look great at the east end of the garden, providing a colorful, textured landscape similar in impact to the ox-eye daisies in the spring. In both cases I’ve done nothing but let them spread across those perennial beds surrounding the pergola.
• The Plains Coreopsis in the “E” bed on the south side of the garden provide a similar color scheme with the yellow petals surrounding dark brown-burgundy centers. These self-seeding annuals in the “J” bed on the opposite side of the fountain had all gone to seed so I pulled them out, but their brothers and sisters in the “E” bed remain rich with blooms.
• The large red blooms on the two giant Hibiscus plants on either side of the pergola provide a welcome tropical touch to the garden. In previous years the hibiscus blooms have been a powerful magnet for the Japanese beetles, but this year their total numbers have been quite small, and I have not seen a single beetle in any of the hibiscus blooms.
• North of the hibiscus are two patches of Autumn Minaret daylilies, with blooms on stalks over 6' high. Because of the hot dry weather, most daylilies quit blooming several weeks ago, but these late-season bloomers have stayed with their regular schedule. There are also a few Frans Hals daylily blooms in the “C” bed directly in front of the Alumni House patio.
• In front of the tall daylilies in the “I” bed is an expanding patch of Salvia azurea, a native of the Midwest plains with small light-blue flowers just beginning to emerge. Nearby is a large Russian sage, labeled as Perovskia atriplicifolia when I purchased it, but I believe it has recently been re-classified as a salvia. Regardless of the name, it is a tough, powerful plant, covered with an impressive bouquet of small blue flowers.
• On two occasions in the last week I’ve given visitors a few Verbena bonariensis. They have spread to several areas in the garden, and their small purple blooms are a favorite landing area for the garden’s Monarchs. This morning, while sitting in the gazebo, I watched three Monarchs visiting the dozens of tall verbena surrounding the flower bed sundial.
• Several of the Joe Pye weeds have struggled with the drought and have required serious watering, but they are all in bloom and provide an important structural foundation for many areas in the garden. Particularly notable is the large patch of Joe Pye weed near the NE park bench, with dozens of Joe Pye clustered together, double the area they were occupying five years ago.
• The ornamental grasses are doing their job, functioning as structural focal points while also ensuring the garden continues to have a texture and visual richness even in these moments when the garden’s flowers are fading. Particularly notable are the two clumps of big bluestem on either side of the NE bench, the variegated miscanthus in the “C” and “L”, the large clump of miscanthus in the “K” bed, the bunny tail grass in “D”, the Sioux Blue Indian grass and the Karl Foerster fountain grass in “F,” the river oats in the rain garden, the hakonechloa and purple love grass in the “K” bed, and the various switch grasses throughout the garden.
• It’s easy to forget that several key species in the garden quietly keep doing their thing, requiring no attention, apparently undaunted by the summer’s drought: the yews around the garden's outer perimeter, the peonies, the Baptisia, all providing an important visual coherence for so much of what happens in the middle and front of these flower beds.
Monday Morning Garden Report: 21 June 2021
What a glorious day: an inch of rain yesterday evening and a cool temp today, so cool that while working in the garden, the breeze made me think I might need a jacket. Wonderful gardening weather after a much-needed rain, the first serious rain since May. Many flowers were drained by June’s long hot, dry spell. While my goal is for all the soil to be shaded by flowers, shrubs, and trees, many plants had not yet reached full summer growth and the exposed areas dried out. The problem was exacerbated by my failure to renew the mulch in areas that have not received fresh mulch for at least two years. The moisture shortage was compounded by the garden losing water pressure. We went five days without water when the garden was experiencing day-time temperatures into the upper 90s. And, of course, it is in this week we have a group of gardeners meeting here for a tour of the garden, followed by a wedding in the garden this past Saturday. I felt like I needed to walk around the garden and apologize to all my perennial friends for not making sure they were looking their best when they needed to be looking their best.
Because so many people were in the garden on the weekend, I arrived this morning expecting to have some trash to pick up, but everything was clean and tidy. Except for the folding white chairs on the lawn, nothing seemed unusual or in need of further attention. Since I had spent last week spiffing up the garden’s flower beds that would provide the background for the wedding ceremony, I decided today I would concentrate on the “A” perennial beds, the ones south of the patio next to the SW gate and the garden shed. Although I walk past these beds every day, this garden dogleg is seldom visited and it’s often the last area that I address. Today I began by cleaning up what I think of as the Wilderness Field Station bed, a 50' rectangular bed containing a couple dozen rocks “borrowed” from Coe’s Wilderness Field Station in 2014. The bed was originally set aside for transplants that accompanied the rocks: a pearly everlasting, several sweet fern, a couple of jewel weeds, three blueberry plants, a few wild strawberries, and a English thyme that Prof. Hadow had planted outside the Field Station’s dining hall. As I expected the jewel weeds quickly died. I was more optimistic about the sweet fern, but none of the transplants took root. The blueberries did hang on for a couple of years, but I eventually transplanted them to a raised bed in my vegetable garden specifically set aside for blueberries. The pearly everlasting have developed into a small colony, but no individual plant has ever grown very large, and I suspect they really do not like Iowa’s long stretches of hot, dry summer heat. The thyme has thrived and each year modestly but confidently expands its home base. As for the strawberries, they have gone crazy, providing an extensive groundcover, with no desire to remain confined to the area’s boundaries. Regrettably their lovely white blooms never produce any wild strawberries. I suspect we are missing an appropriate spring pollinator. I would be remiss if I did not mention that hidden in the clumps of plants that I conveyed to Iowa in 2014 was a lone buttercup, a European invader that has done well in northern Minnesota and has found this small garden in Iowa an equally attractive environment. In addition to several vigorous buttercups that have taken over one corner of the WFS bed, the buttercups have also spread to other beds on the west end of the garden. While I pull up most of the buttercups, they produce such a gorgeous small blossom with that intense, buttery yellow that I’m quite happy to allow a few as a reminder of the north woods.
My first task with the WFS bed this morning was to remove the dried tops of the Blushing Lady tulips that provided two weeks of marvelous blooms earlier this spring. I then opened up the container with the Bishop of Llandaff dahlias and installed them randomly across the bed, aiming for spots that would not disturb the buried tulip bulbs and several perennials added to the bed in recent years, including a platycodon and dianthus in the front of the bed, several salvias in the back, and two lychnis ‘lipsticks’ in the middle, plants that look awful at the moment, brown and desiccated, but I’m semi-optimstic that with this rain they may revive. The Bishop tubers are modest in size, the soil in that bed is loose and friable, and it only took a few minutes to get all the bulbs in place.
I then turned my attention to the upper bed that runs along the wall separating the patio’s ramp from the garden. The first step was pulling up unwanted weeds, grass, several lone goldenrod, a Joe Pye weed, and an elderberry. The only plants left in place are a small salvia and a small Asclepias tuberosa (now topped with the butterfly weed’s rich orange blossoms; at the beginning of this report, see photo of this Asclepias from July of last year). I found the roots for a lychnis that appeared to be dead. After cleaning up the area, I planted half-a-dozen small Asclepias I had started from seed in the greenhouse in February. Although they had not grown very large, they had some roots and all showed evidence of recent growth. The high point while cleaning up this area is that I spotted a small, grayish-brown praying mantis, the first time I’ve ever seen one in this part of the garden. Although usually known for their calm, slow-moving qualities, this little guy, not even 1" long, was quite active, determined to find shelter after I had removed his initial cover.
The next task was cleaning up the crocosima bed. Most hybrids of these South African natives can not survive an Iowa winter, but this ‘Lucifer’ variety was planted her five years ago, and seems to be okay with temperatures below zero. The reddish-orange blooms do not last very long, but their short-lived display makes them all the more precious. I have fond memories of seeing crocosima blooming in English gardens and felt we had to give them a chance. I particularly recall one morning hiking along Hadrian’s Wall in northern England, and we came upon a shallow ditch with several large clumps of crocosima in full bloom. It’s not likely we’ll achieve such success in this little spot next to the Alumni House, but I have not yet given up hope. After they finish blooming this year, I intend to dig them up and renew the soil with fresh compost and mulch, hoping that might inspire them to think they are back home in Africa.
While cleaning up the crocosima bed, I came upon one of the two Buddleia davidii I planted in 2015 along with the crocosima. The introduction of these butterfly bushes was also inspired by encountering them in British gardens, most notably a bed of diverse Buddleia cultivars at Holehird Garden in Cumbria. At the time I did not know that in some areas the species can be invasive, nor did I consider their limitations as a source of nourishment for wildlife. But their blooms really attract the butterflies (although, alas, also Japanese beetles), and so I decided to keep these two bushes in place. Last summer, however, I only saw the larger bush and I assumed the smaller bush next to the WFS rocks had died during the winter. Today, much to my surprise, as I was removing clumps of grass and several elderberry volunteers, I discovered both bushes are alive and growing. So I cleared away any nearby grass and strawberry plants, gave them some organic fertilizer, and wished them well. Although I would never plant them again, they have not proven invasive and their lovely blue flowers are impressive butterfly magnets.
My next task for the morning was cutting back the lemon balm located on the south side of the walkway, in a section where the garden wall was destroyed by the August derecho. As usual, the balm is growing with an impressive vigor, unfazed by the dry weather, and was beginning to cover up the ‘Honorine Jobert’ Japanese anemones planted at the front of the bed. I should probably move these lemon balm plants into a more remote area where they would not need to be cut back 2-3 times each year. Moving them would also give me an opportunity to expand this bed with more anemones. Their white blooms in the late summer are a great addition to the garden.
I finished my morning’s garden work by filling up four large plastic pots in the “J” bed with a mixture of soil, compost, bio-char, and shredded coconut fiber. In two pots I planted a total of six sweet peppers: a Felicity, two Leysa peppers from Croatia, and three Chervena Chushkas (a Bulgarian heirloom sweet pepper). In the other two pots I planted six eggplants: a Millionaire (a Japanese eggplant with minimal seeds), a Poamoho Dark Long (a new variety, bred in Hawaii), a Long Purple, a Listada de Gandia (produces gorgeous purple and white fruit), and two Black Beauties (classic heirloom eggplant; can be a prolific producer). These are all primarily for ornamental value, but perhaps we’ll be lucky and harvest some produce. The big challenge is to keep them well-watered for the next 2-3 weeks until they establish a healthy root system. But who knows, maybe last night’s rainfall foretells a swing in the moisture cycle.
What a glorious day: an inch of rain yesterday evening and a cool temp today, so cool that while working in the garden, the breeze made me think I might need a jacket. Wonderful gardening weather after a much-needed rain, the first serious rain since May. Many flowers were drained by June’s long hot, dry spell. While my goal is for all the soil to be shaded by flowers, shrubs, and trees, many plants had not yet reached full summer growth and the exposed areas dried out. The problem was exacerbated by my failure to renew the mulch in areas that have not received fresh mulch for at least two years. The moisture shortage was compounded by the garden losing water pressure. We went five days without water when the garden was experiencing day-time temperatures into the upper 90s. And, of course, it is in this week we have a group of gardeners meeting here for a tour of the garden, followed by a wedding in the garden this past Saturday. I felt like I needed to walk around the garden and apologize to all my perennial friends for not making sure they were looking their best when they needed to be looking their best.
Because so many people were in the garden on the weekend, I arrived this morning expecting to have some trash to pick up, but everything was clean and tidy. Except for the folding white chairs on the lawn, nothing seemed unusual or in need of further attention. Since I had spent last week spiffing up the garden’s flower beds that would provide the background for the wedding ceremony, I decided today I would concentrate on the “A” perennial beds, the ones south of the patio next to the SW gate and the garden shed. Although I walk past these beds every day, this garden dogleg is seldom visited and it’s often the last area that I address. Today I began by cleaning up what I think of as the Wilderness Field Station bed, a 50' rectangular bed containing a couple dozen rocks “borrowed” from Coe’s Wilderness Field Station in 2014. The bed was originally set aside for transplants that accompanied the rocks: a pearly everlasting, several sweet fern, a couple of jewel weeds, three blueberry plants, a few wild strawberries, and a English thyme that Prof. Hadow had planted outside the Field Station’s dining hall. As I expected the jewel weeds quickly died. I was more optimistic about the sweet fern, but none of the transplants took root. The blueberries did hang on for a couple of years, but I eventually transplanted them to a raised bed in my vegetable garden specifically set aside for blueberries. The pearly everlasting have developed into a small colony, but no individual plant has ever grown very large, and I suspect they really do not like Iowa’s long stretches of hot, dry summer heat. The thyme has thrived and each year modestly but confidently expands its home base. As for the strawberries, they have gone crazy, providing an extensive groundcover, with no desire to remain confined to the area’s boundaries. Regrettably their lovely white blooms never produce any wild strawberries. I suspect we are missing an appropriate spring pollinator. I would be remiss if I did not mention that hidden in the clumps of plants that I conveyed to Iowa in 2014 was a lone buttercup, a European invader that has done well in northern Minnesota and has found this small garden in Iowa an equally attractive environment. In addition to several vigorous buttercups that have taken over one corner of the WFS bed, the buttercups have also spread to other beds on the west end of the garden. While I pull up most of the buttercups, they produce such a gorgeous small blossom with that intense, buttery yellow that I’m quite happy to allow a few as a reminder of the north woods.
My first task with the WFS bed this morning was to remove the dried tops of the Blushing Lady tulips that provided two weeks of marvelous blooms earlier this spring. I then opened up the container with the Bishop of Llandaff dahlias and installed them randomly across the bed, aiming for spots that would not disturb the buried tulip bulbs and several perennials added to the bed in recent years, including a platycodon and dianthus in the front of the bed, several salvias in the back, and two lychnis ‘lipsticks’ in the middle, plants that look awful at the moment, brown and desiccated, but I’m semi-optimstic that with this rain they may revive. The Bishop tubers are modest in size, the soil in that bed is loose and friable, and it only took a few minutes to get all the bulbs in place.
I then turned my attention to the upper bed that runs along the wall separating the patio’s ramp from the garden. The first step was pulling up unwanted weeds, grass, several lone goldenrod, a Joe Pye weed, and an elderberry. The only plants left in place are a small salvia and a small Asclepias tuberosa (now topped with the butterfly weed’s rich orange blossoms; at the beginning of this report, see photo of this Asclepias from July of last year). I found the roots for a lychnis that appeared to be dead. After cleaning up the area, I planted half-a-dozen small Asclepias I had started from seed in the greenhouse in February. Although they had not grown very large, they had some roots and all showed evidence of recent growth. The high point while cleaning up this area is that I spotted a small, grayish-brown praying mantis, the first time I’ve ever seen one in this part of the garden. Although usually known for their calm, slow-moving qualities, this little guy, not even 1" long, was quite active, determined to find shelter after I had removed his initial cover.
The next task was cleaning up the crocosima bed. Most hybrids of these South African natives can not survive an Iowa winter, but this ‘Lucifer’ variety was planted her five years ago, and seems to be okay with temperatures below zero. The reddish-orange blooms do not last very long, but their short-lived display makes them all the more precious. I have fond memories of seeing crocosima blooming in English gardens and felt we had to give them a chance. I particularly recall one morning hiking along Hadrian’s Wall in northern England, and we came upon a shallow ditch with several large clumps of crocosima in full bloom. It’s not likely we’ll achieve such success in this little spot next to the Alumni House, but I have not yet given up hope. After they finish blooming this year, I intend to dig them up and renew the soil with fresh compost and mulch, hoping that might inspire them to think they are back home in Africa.
While cleaning up the crocosima bed, I came upon one of the two Buddleia davidii I planted in 2015 along with the crocosima. The introduction of these butterfly bushes was also inspired by encountering them in British gardens, most notably a bed of diverse Buddleia cultivars at Holehird Garden in Cumbria. At the time I did not know that in some areas the species can be invasive, nor did I consider their limitations as a source of nourishment for wildlife. But their blooms really attract the butterflies (although, alas, also Japanese beetles), and so I decided to keep these two bushes in place. Last summer, however, I only saw the larger bush and I assumed the smaller bush next to the WFS rocks had died during the winter. Today, much to my surprise, as I was removing clumps of grass and several elderberry volunteers, I discovered both bushes are alive and growing. So I cleared away any nearby grass and strawberry plants, gave them some organic fertilizer, and wished them well. Although I would never plant them again, they have not proven invasive and their lovely blue flowers are impressive butterfly magnets.
My next task for the morning was cutting back the lemon balm located on the south side of the walkway, in a section where the garden wall was destroyed by the August derecho. As usual, the balm is growing with an impressive vigor, unfazed by the dry weather, and was beginning to cover up the ‘Honorine Jobert’ Japanese anemones planted at the front of the bed. I should probably move these lemon balm plants into a more remote area where they would not need to be cut back 2-3 times each year. Moving them would also give me an opportunity to expand this bed with more anemones. Their white blooms in the late summer are a great addition to the garden.
I finished my morning’s garden work by filling up four large plastic pots in the “J” bed with a mixture of soil, compost, bio-char, and shredded coconut fiber. In two pots I planted a total of six sweet peppers: a Felicity, two Leysa peppers from Croatia, and three Chervena Chushkas (a Bulgarian heirloom sweet pepper). In the other two pots I planted six eggplants: a Millionaire (a Japanese eggplant with minimal seeds), a Poamoho Dark Long (a new variety, bred in Hawaii), a Long Purple, a Listada de Gandia (produces gorgeous purple and white fruit), and two Black Beauties (classic heirloom eggplant; can be a prolific producer). These are all primarily for ornamental value, but perhaps we’ll be lucky and harvest some produce. The big challenge is to keep them well-watered for the next 2-3 weeks until they establish a healthy root system. But who knows, maybe last night’s rainfall foretells a swing in the moisture cycle.
Monday Morning Garden Report: 7 June 2021
The notes for this walk were taken shortly before 12:00 noon; the garden shed thermometer (located in the shade on the east side of the building) registered 91F. Our meteorological summer has arrived. Some saving grace with the moderate breeze and the occasional moments of shade from a cumulus cloud drifting across the sky, but it feels hot . . . and dry. Many plants are under duress, including the Lychnis ‘Lipstick’ (they really don’t like the intense sunlight),, several Joe Pye weeds, a coral bells (additional woes caused, apparently, by an animal sitting down on the plant), a group of three red-blooming yarrows (recently added to a bed in front of the patio), a line of ginger in full shade, and the mix of wild strawberries and pearly everlasting (both transported from the Wilderness Field Station in 2015, both wishing they were still in northern Minnesota). Most of these plants are residing in exposed soil that has not recently been mulched.
My attention on this latest walk was often drawn to the flowers that have passed their prime. Part of my attraction to these recent ruins is knowing that in most instances it will be another year before their flowers return. Most notable this morning are the ox-eye daisies, now looking worn and spent, their white petals having dominated the east end of the garden for the past month. It’s time for them to receive their summer pruning–as well as the brown, limp foliage of the daffodils. The white flowers on the garden’s lone mock orange are now wilted, the snow-in-summer have concluded their vibrant display for several weeks, and the garden’s peonies are also finished. The same with the pergola’s north-side clematis, though their seedheads are beautiful when seen close at hand. The pergola’s wisteria are also finished, though there is a possibility they may produce another round of fragrant flowers later this summer. The Siberian iris are done. The largest colony of Siberian Iris, located not far from the gazebo, produced very few blooms this year. It’s time for them to be dug up, separated, and replanted with fresh compost and some breathing room between each new clump. Most of the salvias are approaching their final days, though one group in the shade still have many prominent purple spears of flowers. And, finally, the Allium moly ‘Jeannine’ and their small, bright yellow, star-shaped flowers are only a memory. The two patches on the north side of the garden are often hidden by other plants’ foliage. I suspect many garden visitors never notice them, but it’s okay for some flowers to be waiting in secret, surprising visitors when least expected. These modest allium are very hardy, require no care, and appear to be slowly expanding their numbers. It’s understandable why they received the Royal Horticultural Society’s esteemed Award of Garden Merit.
But that’s enough reminiscing on the past. Despite the challenges of these hot and dry days in early June, the garden is full of current bloomers:
• Maltese Cross: just three small flower heads but those bright red petals are easily seen from almost anywhere in the garden; remarkable how potent three small flowers can be.
• The catmint are covered with blue flowers and multitudes of bees; my one regret with the catmint is that by the first week in June they are flopping over their neighbors; they need to be cut back well before they are finished blooming.
• The goatsbeard (Aruncus dioicus) in the shade of the SW flowering crab is covered with feathery plumes of cream-white florets. While they resemble a large astilbe, the goatsbeard is a native North American perennial, a member of the diverse Rosaceae family. The flower buds on the astilbe in front of them should start blooming in another week. Both plants have done well in this area; however, the astilbe have problems competing with the tree roots for moisture. They really struggled during that long dry spell last summer.
• Several cranesbill are now at their peak: the Geranium x cantabrigiense 'Biokovo' (dainty, pale pink blossoms on a neat, hardy well-manned plant with minimal demands); the blue blooms on the Johnson’s geranium; all the bloody cranesbill; the Rozanne cranesbill just beginning a bloom cycle that should last into October;
• As was true last year, the garden is going through a brief period when the dominant flowers are the small white blooms on the Husker Red and Dark Tower penstemons. These beardtongue were adopted because of their dark burgundy foliage and their ability to handle shade and drought. On an individual plant the small, individual flowers are quite modest, but there are now enough clumps of them throughout the garden that they really make a statement as we wait for the orange daylilies to take over.
• Other blooms that deserve some recognition for their contributions to the garden:
–Native columbine: they just keep pumping out new blooms; by far, their best year.
–A mass of thyme in the crevice garden: the thyme in the rock garden is finished blooming but this other variety is just reaching its peak; the tiny creeping thyme in the herb garden is also blooming, though the flowers are hidden under the much taller salvia and oregano.
–A bed of bright yellow flowers on the sedum across from the crevice garden.
–Spiderwort, their short-lived blue blooms popping up all over the garden.
–Fleabane: also popping up all over the garden, though I pull up most of the ones that appear in the middle or front of a flower bed.
–Rose campion: a large block of them in the NE corner of the garden.
–Love-in-a-mist: thick masses of the light blue Nigella blossoms in the “L” bed in front of the patio.
--Lady’s mantle with swarms of small yellow blooms hanging over the foliage.
–The 7' tall meadow rue in the rain garden and the yellow flowers of the much shorter Ruta graveolens in the herb garden.
–Multitudes of red roses on the two old rose shrubs on either side of the pergola: a mixture of fresh new blooms intermingled with the wilted.
–First purple coneflowers of the season and the first red hot poker (in this case the flower is a yellow and orange spike of small blooms).
–Several small pincushion plants with their pale blue blossoms.
–Hellebores were blooming in February and four months later, they are still in bloom–though the shy flowers are all facing toward the soil, all easy to overlook.
–Perhaps most exciting, the two honeysuckle vines, both covered with blossoms; I’m in love with the fragrance of the honeysuckle next to the NW gate.
• Finally, flowers that are within days of opening: pink hollyhocks near the NW flowering crab, perennial sunflowers, and Verbena bonariensis (according to most resources, a Zone 7 plant, but many of these tender perennials survived this year’s winter.
The notes for this walk were taken shortly before 12:00 noon; the garden shed thermometer (located in the shade on the east side of the building) registered 91F. Our meteorological summer has arrived. Some saving grace with the moderate breeze and the occasional moments of shade from a cumulus cloud drifting across the sky, but it feels hot . . . and dry. Many plants are under duress, including the Lychnis ‘Lipstick’ (they really don’t like the intense sunlight),, several Joe Pye weeds, a coral bells (additional woes caused, apparently, by an animal sitting down on the plant), a group of three red-blooming yarrows (recently added to a bed in front of the patio), a line of ginger in full shade, and the mix of wild strawberries and pearly everlasting (both transported from the Wilderness Field Station in 2015, both wishing they were still in northern Minnesota). Most of these plants are residing in exposed soil that has not recently been mulched.
My attention on this latest walk was often drawn to the flowers that have passed their prime. Part of my attraction to these recent ruins is knowing that in most instances it will be another year before their flowers return. Most notable this morning are the ox-eye daisies, now looking worn and spent, their white petals having dominated the east end of the garden for the past month. It’s time for them to receive their summer pruning–as well as the brown, limp foliage of the daffodils. The white flowers on the garden’s lone mock orange are now wilted, the snow-in-summer have concluded their vibrant display for several weeks, and the garden’s peonies are also finished. The same with the pergola’s north-side clematis, though their seedheads are beautiful when seen close at hand. The pergola’s wisteria are also finished, though there is a possibility they may produce another round of fragrant flowers later this summer. The Siberian iris are done. The largest colony of Siberian Iris, located not far from the gazebo, produced very few blooms this year. It’s time for them to be dug up, separated, and replanted with fresh compost and some breathing room between each new clump. Most of the salvias are approaching their final days, though one group in the shade still have many prominent purple spears of flowers. And, finally, the Allium moly ‘Jeannine’ and their small, bright yellow, star-shaped flowers are only a memory. The two patches on the north side of the garden are often hidden by other plants’ foliage. I suspect many garden visitors never notice them, but it’s okay for some flowers to be waiting in secret, surprising visitors when least expected. These modest allium are very hardy, require no care, and appear to be slowly expanding their numbers. It’s understandable why they received the Royal Horticultural Society’s esteemed Award of Garden Merit.
But that’s enough reminiscing on the past. Despite the challenges of these hot and dry days in early June, the garden is full of current bloomers:
• Maltese Cross: just three small flower heads but those bright red petals are easily seen from almost anywhere in the garden; remarkable how potent three small flowers can be.
• The catmint are covered with blue flowers and multitudes of bees; my one regret with the catmint is that by the first week in June they are flopping over their neighbors; they need to be cut back well before they are finished blooming.
• The goatsbeard (Aruncus dioicus) in the shade of the SW flowering crab is covered with feathery plumes of cream-white florets. While they resemble a large astilbe, the goatsbeard is a native North American perennial, a member of the diverse Rosaceae family. The flower buds on the astilbe in front of them should start blooming in another week. Both plants have done well in this area; however, the astilbe have problems competing with the tree roots for moisture. They really struggled during that long dry spell last summer.
• Several cranesbill are now at their peak: the Geranium x cantabrigiense 'Biokovo' (dainty, pale pink blossoms on a neat, hardy well-manned plant with minimal demands); the blue blooms on the Johnson’s geranium; all the bloody cranesbill; the Rozanne cranesbill just beginning a bloom cycle that should last into October;
• As was true last year, the garden is going through a brief period when the dominant flowers are the small white blooms on the Husker Red and Dark Tower penstemons. These beardtongue were adopted because of their dark burgundy foliage and their ability to handle shade and drought. On an individual plant the small, individual flowers are quite modest, but there are now enough clumps of them throughout the garden that they really make a statement as we wait for the orange daylilies to take over.
• Other blooms that deserve some recognition for their contributions to the garden:
–Native columbine: they just keep pumping out new blooms; by far, their best year.
–A mass of thyme in the crevice garden: the thyme in the rock garden is finished blooming but this other variety is just reaching its peak; the tiny creeping thyme in the herb garden is also blooming, though the flowers are hidden under the much taller salvia and oregano.
–A bed of bright yellow flowers on the sedum across from the crevice garden.
–Spiderwort, their short-lived blue blooms popping up all over the garden.
–Fleabane: also popping up all over the garden, though I pull up most of the ones that appear in the middle or front of a flower bed.
–Rose campion: a large block of them in the NE corner of the garden.
–Love-in-a-mist: thick masses of the light blue Nigella blossoms in the “L” bed in front of the patio.
--Lady’s mantle with swarms of small yellow blooms hanging over the foliage.
–The 7' tall meadow rue in the rain garden and the yellow flowers of the much shorter Ruta graveolens in the herb garden.
–Multitudes of red roses on the two old rose shrubs on either side of the pergola: a mixture of fresh new blooms intermingled with the wilted.
–First purple coneflowers of the season and the first red hot poker (in this case the flower is a yellow and orange spike of small blooms).
–Several small pincushion plants with their pale blue blossoms.
–Hellebores were blooming in February and four months later, they are still in bloom–though the shy flowers are all facing toward the soil, all easy to overlook.
–Perhaps most exciting, the two honeysuckle vines, both covered with blossoms; I’m in love with the fragrance of the honeysuckle next to the NW gate.
• Finally, flowers that are within days of opening: pink hollyhocks near the NW flowering crab, perennial sunflowers, and Verbena bonariensis (according to most resources, a Zone 7 plant, but many of these tender perennials survived this year’s winter.
Monday Morning Garden Report: 3 May 2021
As I walked out of the Plaza theater, I was overwhelmed by the fragrance of the summer air, recently cooled by an evening shower that had passed over us while we were inside the theater, watching a movie. As a teenager raised on a Kansas farm, it never occurred to me that the English language had a word for the smell of the air after a rain: “petrichor” (“petr” for stone and “ichor” for the fluid that flows in the veins Greece’s mythological gods). I’ve read that “cellar door” is the most beautiful two-word combination in the English language, but I would prefer putting my money on “petrichor”–which wins in terms of both sound and meaning.
This afternoon, after several weeks of dry weather, I was on a ladder trimming a wisteria when I smelled the rain coming. Scientists have discovered the compound “geosmin” (which translates “earth smell”) is a compound in the soil that is released by rain, and our noses are remarkably sensitive to geosmin, able to detect 10 parts in a trillion. What would be the evolutionary value of such a refined sensitivity to such a tiny compound? Perhaps if you are traveling through a desert, your survival might depend upon detecting such a tiny piece of evidence to help locate water? Regardless of its practical benefits, today that sensitivity felt like a great gift.
With the arrival of the rain shower, I retreated into the gazebo, laid down my tool bag, and spent an hour doing nothing, just sitting, watching it rain, thinking to myself that this is paradise: it’s not likely any moment could be better than this. From the gazebo, my gaze gravitated to the pergola and the six Kentucky wisteria (Wisteria macrostachya ‘Blue Moon’), winding their way up and around and over the top of the pergola’s broad wooden beams. The first two wisteria were planted in 2015 and the remaining four in the next two years. They have at times struggled, but this spring–for the first time–they have all entered the month of May in a full-growth mode. My dream is that in a few more years there will be a week in June when the pergola is covered in the lightly scented racemes of wisteria blooms. There should be a special word in the English language for the fragrance of a wisteria bloom. Perhaps “wistichor”?
A gentle, soft rain–
no lightning, no thunder,
no wind, no theatrics.
Reminiscent of rain
in the England’s Lake District,
intimations it could last all day–
but not this shower in Iowa:
this is a musical interlude,
its coda already on the horizon.
Scanning the garden, I see all these greens: the bluish green of the daffodil leaves, the hundreds of Siberian iris spears, the broader and lighter green leaves of the allium planted in the middle of the iris, the lime jello green of the shrub rose, the silver-green of the Cerastium tomentosum in the sundial flower bed, the varieties of yellow-green leaves in the variegated hostas behind the NE park bench. The vibrant power of the emerging hosta foliage takes my breath away. No wonder the white-tail deer find the leaves irresistible.
Still raining,
the tiny, exquisite
dots of sound,
the rain
on the gazebo’s cedar shingles.
The daffodil blooms are almost finished, just a few lingering, creamy yellow, fluffy, cotton-candy, hybrid double cultivar blooms. They came in the White Farm Flower mix, the first bulbs I purchased for the garden, planted in the fall of 2015. While it has proven a wonderful assortment of reliable bulbs with staggered bloom cycles, I could live without the frilly blossoms. On the other hand, I appreciate these late bloomers, an unexpected encore just when you thought the show was over. As for the tulips, most have also reached the stage where they no longer worry about keeping up appearances, no longer closing up their blooms, either for darkness or for an afternoon rain shower.
The rain gauge.
I forgot to set out the rain gauge.
They turned on the garden’s fountain just in time for this weekend’s graduation ceremonies. As I look out across the garden, the dark green background of the yews confirms it’s still raining–but the rain then disappears into the fountain’s perpendicular spray. And it’s beginning to feel cooler. Perhaps I detect a chill because I’m not moving, just sitting here, my internal motor on idle. As I turn to look again at the gray pergola, I can see the taller clematis, its top leaf now above the 8' tall metal support. I planted the clematis five years ago, but my written records are confusing: the label for this cultivar does not match the plant’s blooms. I just learned that Brewster Rogerson, one of my undergraduate professors, in retirement moved from Kansas to Oregon and established one of the premiere clematis collections in the world. I recall Prof. Rogerson’s critical precision when introducing strategies for analyzing and reflecting on British poetry. I’m sure his clematis records were meticulously accurate, and he would know the name and preferred pruning practices for my clematis. I regret I was not a more conscientious student. I learned a lot from him–but I had a lot to learn.
The rain being filtered
by the leaves of the crab apple,
then condensed into large drops,
falling on the roof of the Little Free Library.
This weekend I received an email from a Coe student who had removed from the garden's Little Free Library a book on the history of philosophy. Inside the copy of the book, one I had read as an undergraduate, the student found an “excused absence slip” for informing my college instructors that I was a member of the A Capella Choir and would miss four days of classes because of our choir tour. The student sent me a photo of this artifact and asked if I wanted the form returned. Thanking him for the email, I assured him that I no longer needed this small piece of paper excusing me from analytical chemistry and calculus II and English II and my other classes in the spring of 1964.
The rain continues to fall on the flowers in bloom,
the moss phlox in the rock garden
and the snow-in-summer in the raised beds,
and the cushion spurge nestled among the daylilies
and the camassia with the racemes of blue stars,
and the final days of the grape hyacinths,
their best year ever.
~Bob
[Photo of grape grape hyacinths and its neighbors on April 19.]
As I walked out of the Plaza theater, I was overwhelmed by the fragrance of the summer air, recently cooled by an evening shower that had passed over us while we were inside the theater, watching a movie. As a teenager raised on a Kansas farm, it never occurred to me that the English language had a word for the smell of the air after a rain: “petrichor” (“petr” for stone and “ichor” for the fluid that flows in the veins Greece’s mythological gods). I’ve read that “cellar door” is the most beautiful two-word combination in the English language, but I would prefer putting my money on “petrichor”–which wins in terms of both sound and meaning.
This afternoon, after several weeks of dry weather, I was on a ladder trimming a wisteria when I smelled the rain coming. Scientists have discovered the compound “geosmin” (which translates “earth smell”) is a compound in the soil that is released by rain, and our noses are remarkably sensitive to geosmin, able to detect 10 parts in a trillion. What would be the evolutionary value of such a refined sensitivity to such a tiny compound? Perhaps if you are traveling through a desert, your survival might depend upon detecting such a tiny piece of evidence to help locate water? Regardless of its practical benefits, today that sensitivity felt like a great gift.
With the arrival of the rain shower, I retreated into the gazebo, laid down my tool bag, and spent an hour doing nothing, just sitting, watching it rain, thinking to myself that this is paradise: it’s not likely any moment could be better than this. From the gazebo, my gaze gravitated to the pergola and the six Kentucky wisteria (Wisteria macrostachya ‘Blue Moon’), winding their way up and around and over the top of the pergola’s broad wooden beams. The first two wisteria were planted in 2015 and the remaining four in the next two years. They have at times struggled, but this spring–for the first time–they have all entered the month of May in a full-growth mode. My dream is that in a few more years there will be a week in June when the pergola is covered in the lightly scented racemes of wisteria blooms. There should be a special word in the English language for the fragrance of a wisteria bloom. Perhaps “wistichor”?
A gentle, soft rain–
no lightning, no thunder,
no wind, no theatrics.
Reminiscent of rain
in the England’s Lake District,
intimations it could last all day–
but not this shower in Iowa:
this is a musical interlude,
its coda already on the horizon.
Scanning the garden, I see all these greens: the bluish green of the daffodil leaves, the hundreds of Siberian iris spears, the broader and lighter green leaves of the allium planted in the middle of the iris, the lime jello green of the shrub rose, the silver-green of the Cerastium tomentosum in the sundial flower bed, the varieties of yellow-green leaves in the variegated hostas behind the NE park bench. The vibrant power of the emerging hosta foliage takes my breath away. No wonder the white-tail deer find the leaves irresistible.
Still raining,
the tiny, exquisite
dots of sound,
the rain
on the gazebo’s cedar shingles.
The daffodil blooms are almost finished, just a few lingering, creamy yellow, fluffy, cotton-candy, hybrid double cultivar blooms. They came in the White Farm Flower mix, the first bulbs I purchased for the garden, planted in the fall of 2015. While it has proven a wonderful assortment of reliable bulbs with staggered bloom cycles, I could live without the frilly blossoms. On the other hand, I appreciate these late bloomers, an unexpected encore just when you thought the show was over. As for the tulips, most have also reached the stage where they no longer worry about keeping up appearances, no longer closing up their blooms, either for darkness or for an afternoon rain shower.
The rain gauge.
I forgot to set out the rain gauge.
They turned on the garden’s fountain just in time for this weekend’s graduation ceremonies. As I look out across the garden, the dark green background of the yews confirms it’s still raining–but the rain then disappears into the fountain’s perpendicular spray. And it’s beginning to feel cooler. Perhaps I detect a chill because I’m not moving, just sitting here, my internal motor on idle. As I turn to look again at the gray pergola, I can see the taller clematis, its top leaf now above the 8' tall metal support. I planted the clematis five years ago, but my written records are confusing: the label for this cultivar does not match the plant’s blooms. I just learned that Brewster Rogerson, one of my undergraduate professors, in retirement moved from Kansas to Oregon and established one of the premiere clematis collections in the world. I recall Prof. Rogerson’s critical precision when introducing strategies for analyzing and reflecting on British poetry. I’m sure his clematis records were meticulously accurate, and he would know the name and preferred pruning practices for my clematis. I regret I was not a more conscientious student. I learned a lot from him–but I had a lot to learn.
The rain being filtered
by the leaves of the crab apple,
then condensed into large drops,
falling on the roof of the Little Free Library.
This weekend I received an email from a Coe student who had removed from the garden's Little Free Library a book on the history of philosophy. Inside the copy of the book, one I had read as an undergraduate, the student found an “excused absence slip” for informing my college instructors that I was a member of the A Capella Choir and would miss four days of classes because of our choir tour. The student sent me a photo of this artifact and asked if I wanted the form returned. Thanking him for the email, I assured him that I no longer needed this small piece of paper excusing me from analytical chemistry and calculus II and English II and my other classes in the spring of 1964.
The rain continues to fall on the flowers in bloom,
the moss phlox in the rock garden
and the snow-in-summer in the raised beds,
and the cushion spurge nestled among the daylilies
and the camassia with the racemes of blue stars,
and the final days of the grape hyacinths,
their best year ever.
~Bob
[Photo of grape grape hyacinths and its neighbors on April 19.]
Monday Morning Garden Report: 5 April 2021
Because of the favorable weather, I’ve spent most of my gardening days the last two weeks working in my vegetable garden: repairing the deer/rabbit fence, building a new raised bed for sweet potatoes, cleaning up dead vegetation from last fall, spreading fresh compost from the compost bins, preparing beds for spring planting, and even sowing a few seeds and root crops (lettuce, spinach, peas, onions, potatoes, radishes, carrots, beets). It was thus somewhat of a shock when I walked through the Alumni House Garden and discovered just how much had changed since my last visit four days ago, witnessing a garden in a dramatic transformation phase. Here are a few of my observations, beginning with identification of plants in bloom:
• The yellow daffodils are impossible to ignore, particularly the line of daffodils stretching across the east end of the garden, but there are also notable clumps on the north side as well, including several groups of miniature, buttercup yellow Tete-a-Tete miniatures with their long, narrow trumpets. There is a smattering of daffodils on the south side just beginning to bloom, but because the south side receives fewer hours of direct sun in the early spring, those flowers are a few days behind the bloomers on the warmer, sunlit side of the garden.
• The flowers in the garden with the strongest fragrance are the hyacinths under the pergola. These light blue and purple blooms only last for a few days, but they provide a heavenly aroma for anyone lucky enough this week to be walking under the pergola. Well over 100 grape hyacinths (Muscari armeniacum–a species reputed to have a musky aroma, a scent I’ve never detected) near the NW bench are also in bloom; the sibling patch next to the SW bench have flower buds but have not yet begun to open. Behind the NW bench are a few Jack Frost Brunnera with fresh, silver-webbed leaves and their priceless little blue flowers, which always remind me of forget-me-nots.
• Along the gravel walkways in front of the patio are dozens of Grecian wind flowers and Chiondoxa. The latter are known by the common name “glory of the snow” and the botanical name is from the Greek words for “snow” (chion) and glory (doxa). At the east end of the garden, we also have the garden’s first Siberian squill in bloom, planted last fall, a close relative of the Chiondoxa . The anemones and chiondoxa appear to be naturalizing, and perhaps the Scilla siberica will do likewise.
• In the crevice garden, the reticulated iris are finished blooming, but the moss phlox in the nearby rock garden are covered with buds, and a few pink phlox blossoms are just beginning to open.
• Across from the rock garden is a row of emerging peony bushes with their dramatic greenish-burgundy stalks and large, beautiful fern-like leaves just beginning to unfold. At the west end of the peonies is a solitary bleeding heart, whose foliage at this stage resembles a softer and gentler version of the peonies.
• At the other end of the garden, tucked away in the SE corner next to the wind chimes, are the hellebores, these Lenten roses now in their prime, covered with dozens of gorgeous blooms that almost no one ever sees. Most of the hellebore blooms face toward the ground (a characteristic of many early spring flowers) and they reside along a wood chip path that not many visitors use. Perhaps I should put up a neon sign announcing that this path leads to the hellebores?
• Another early bloomer is the Geum triflorum (common name prairie smoke, also known as purple avens), a front-of-the-border flower in the northeast corner. A tough North American wildflower that can survive north of the Arctic Circle; this is another quiet, demure flower, facing toward the ground. It produces a lovely, diaphanous seedpod responsible for the “prairie smoke” image. Last year one of the two clumps did not produce any blooms, but this year they both are sporting a lovely crop of flowers with their creamy petals and purple bracts.
• While some flowers are now in full bloom, today’s walk around the garden revealed a number of plants with flower buds that will shortly be opening, including the two dwarf lilac bushes, hundreds of Ox-eye daisies, a viburnum with a powerfully fragrant flower that will shortly be in bloom, and the flowering crab apples--the first week in April feels early but my garden journal confirms that the apple tree buds were at the same stage at this time last year.
One notable development in recent days has been the emergence of new foliage in all the perennial flower beds: honeysuckles, rose bushes, all the different alliums and chives, daylilies, lady’s mantle, sedums, coreopsis, cranesbill, catmint, camassia, tansy, lupins, hyssops, lamb’s ear, parsley, the loosestrifes, Siberian and flag iris, columbine, clematis, meadow sweet, cushion spurge, rose campion, echinops, and the Karl Foerster feather reed grass (the first ornamental grass in the garden to send up new green stalks). And perhaps most amazing: during the entire walk, I did not spy one dandelion, though I know it’s only a matter of time before they insist on their day in the sun.
Because of the favorable weather, I’ve spent most of my gardening days the last two weeks working in my vegetable garden: repairing the deer/rabbit fence, building a new raised bed for sweet potatoes, cleaning up dead vegetation from last fall, spreading fresh compost from the compost bins, preparing beds for spring planting, and even sowing a few seeds and root crops (lettuce, spinach, peas, onions, potatoes, radishes, carrots, beets). It was thus somewhat of a shock when I walked through the Alumni House Garden and discovered just how much had changed since my last visit four days ago, witnessing a garden in a dramatic transformation phase. Here are a few of my observations, beginning with identification of plants in bloom:
• The yellow daffodils are impossible to ignore, particularly the line of daffodils stretching across the east end of the garden, but there are also notable clumps on the north side as well, including several groups of miniature, buttercup yellow Tete-a-Tete miniatures with their long, narrow trumpets. There is a smattering of daffodils on the south side just beginning to bloom, but because the south side receives fewer hours of direct sun in the early spring, those flowers are a few days behind the bloomers on the warmer, sunlit side of the garden.
• The flowers in the garden with the strongest fragrance are the hyacinths under the pergola. These light blue and purple blooms only last for a few days, but they provide a heavenly aroma for anyone lucky enough this week to be walking under the pergola. Well over 100 grape hyacinths (Muscari armeniacum–a species reputed to have a musky aroma, a scent I’ve never detected) near the NW bench are also in bloom; the sibling patch next to the SW bench have flower buds but have not yet begun to open. Behind the NW bench are a few Jack Frost Brunnera with fresh, silver-webbed leaves and their priceless little blue flowers, which always remind me of forget-me-nots.
• Along the gravel walkways in front of the patio are dozens of Grecian wind flowers and Chiondoxa. The latter are known by the common name “glory of the snow” and the botanical name is from the Greek words for “snow” (chion) and glory (doxa). At the east end of the garden, we also have the garden’s first Siberian squill in bloom, planted last fall, a close relative of the Chiondoxa . The anemones and chiondoxa appear to be naturalizing, and perhaps the Scilla siberica will do likewise.
• In the crevice garden, the reticulated iris are finished blooming, but the moss phlox in the nearby rock garden are covered with buds, and a few pink phlox blossoms are just beginning to open.
• Across from the rock garden is a row of emerging peony bushes with their dramatic greenish-burgundy stalks and large, beautiful fern-like leaves just beginning to unfold. At the west end of the peonies is a solitary bleeding heart, whose foliage at this stage resembles a softer and gentler version of the peonies.
• At the other end of the garden, tucked away in the SE corner next to the wind chimes, are the hellebores, these Lenten roses now in their prime, covered with dozens of gorgeous blooms that almost no one ever sees. Most of the hellebore blooms face toward the ground (a characteristic of many early spring flowers) and they reside along a wood chip path that not many visitors use. Perhaps I should put up a neon sign announcing that this path leads to the hellebores?
• Another early bloomer is the Geum triflorum (common name prairie smoke, also known as purple avens), a front-of-the-border flower in the northeast corner. A tough North American wildflower that can survive north of the Arctic Circle; this is another quiet, demure flower, facing toward the ground. It produces a lovely, diaphanous seedpod responsible for the “prairie smoke” image. Last year one of the two clumps did not produce any blooms, but this year they both are sporting a lovely crop of flowers with their creamy petals and purple bracts.
• While some flowers are now in full bloom, today’s walk around the garden revealed a number of plants with flower buds that will shortly be opening, including the two dwarf lilac bushes, hundreds of Ox-eye daisies, a viburnum with a powerfully fragrant flower that will shortly be in bloom, and the flowering crab apples--the first week in April feels early but my garden journal confirms that the apple tree buds were at the same stage at this time last year.
One notable development in recent days has been the emergence of new foliage in all the perennial flower beds: honeysuckles, rose bushes, all the different alliums and chives, daylilies, lady’s mantle, sedums, coreopsis, cranesbill, catmint, camassia, tansy, lupins, hyssops, lamb’s ear, parsley, the loosestrifes, Siberian and flag iris, columbine, clematis, meadow sweet, cushion spurge, rose campion, echinops, and the Karl Foerster feather reed grass (the first ornamental grass in the garden to send up new green stalks). And perhaps most amazing: during the entire walk, I did not spy one dandelion, though I know it’s only a matter of time before they insist on their day in the sun.
Monday Morning Garden Report: 22 March 2021
Trash. Along the gravel walkway leading to the SW gate, the flower beds were littered with a stream of garbage: egg cartons, receipts from Walmart and Jiffy Lube, styrofoam cups and plates, Oreo and Reese’s candy wrappers, an empty lunch meat bag, water bottles, beer cans (mostly Busch Light), bags from Wendy’s and Arby’s, a cracked plastic cup from Starbucks, handwritten biology lecture notes, a small half-filled whiskey glass bottle. The last item reminded me of a canoe trip in the Boundary Waters where we found near our campsite a large glass bottle of Smirnoff’s Vodka. After pouring out the clear alcohol, we packed up the empty bottle in a Duluth bag, saving it for the recycling bin at the Wilderness Field Station. As for the Alumni Garden trash, I collected this sample of cultural artifacts in a spacious plastic crate and dumped everything–except for the recyclable beer cans--into a dumpster outside a student apartment. Although this was the largest litter collection I’ve had at the garden in several years, it was easier to deal with than the summer morning in 2014 when I found an old mattress that had been thrown over the garden wall.
On Saturday, the first day of spring, I had visited the garden at noon (God’s time, not Daylight Savings Time) because the sun was shining and I wanted a photo of the shadows cast on the seasonal sundial as it recorded the spring equinox. Due to an uneven spring thaw, the sundial was slightly unbalanced, but once the plate was level, the shadows were perfectly aligned. (See photo at the end of this report.)
As for the garden’s spring bulbs, the first wave of early bloomers is now in full swing: reticulated iris, crocus, winter aconites, snowdrops, one container of Tete-a-Tete daffodils (these benefitted from a head start in the greenhouse). The iris in the crevice garden were the first flowers to bloom this spring, one day ahead of the crocus. The ‘Eye Catcher’ iris have already begun to wither, but the ‘Katherine Hodgkin’ are at their peak–not only the ones in the crevice garden but two colonies planted around the floral sundial in front of the gazebo. The various crocus (yellows, purples, whites) planted two years ago in the beds in front of the terrace are doing well and some are beginning to naturalize; however, the Tommies in the lawn are not as vigorous this year. The number of these crocus is smaller--though the head count is complicated by their decision to emerge at different times. While some are at the end of their bloom cycle, many others are just breaking through the thatch. We’ll have to wait and see if the late arrivals decide to bloom.
Two recent visitors to the garden have asked me to identify the winter aconites. Although their blooms are small and low to the ground, the petals are a vibrant yellow that captures a viewer’s attention. The winter aconites I planted three years ago only came up one spring and never returned, but the second batch planted two years ago are doing much better and appear to be naturalizing. As for the early daffodils, the expected wet and cool temperatures for the remainder of this week may delay their full-throated arrival, but the many flower buds indicate by the end of the week the garden should be awash with yellow daffodil blossoms. Last fall I planted several more groups of the miniature Tete-a-Tetes daffodils, which should be among the first to bloom. I also created space for over 50 Pride of Lion bulbs, a newly developed daffodil with a broad, intensely yellow cup. They are likely to have a dramatic presence in the garden when they start blooming in late April or early May. Much sooner will be the yellow blossoms on the two forsythia bushes at the east end of the garden. Their flower buds are just beginning to open up, and their prime bloom period should arrive early next week. I did not prune the forsythia bushes last year, and while their form is distinctly wild and ungainly, I’m hoping they reward my indulgence with an unrestrained flurry of yellow blossoms. Fortuitously the two forsythia bushes are tucked away in remote corners of the garden. Once their blossoms wither away, the shrubs tend to retreat into the background. When I see them in bloom I’m invariably reminded of a late winter day in 1993, walking through Hyde Park in London and coming upon a group of Forsythia covered in yellow flowers. Almost thirty years later, I still relish the joy of that moment.
Once I finished picking up trash and monitoring the spring bulbs, I spent the remainder of the morning cleaning up the two raised herb beds on the south side of the garden. Because these beds are mostly in the shade in the late winter/early spring days, these beds can lag behind the sun-drenched north side, but this morning, I saw many signs of growth. A most unexpected gift is the re-emergence of a large bed of parsley. I started this parsley from seed in the greenhouse in 2019, thinking it would be an annual. Those initial four plants produced an excellent crop of parsley, and I planned to repeat the process the following spring. But last year I discovered that without my intervention the bed had a full and expanded colony of parsley plants. Since the parsley had so industriously self-seeded, I left them to do their own thing. The result was a huge parsley harvest–much of it given away but we also used it for making frozen pesto and several batches of Tabouli salad. Today, while clearing away old foliage, I discovered that last year’s parsley plants have survived the winter and are producing new leaves. These guys think they are a perennial and perhaps are intending to take over this herb bed. I need to see if my records identify what variety of parsley seeds I sowed in 2019. Several other plants in the herb garden are also producing new growth: the sage, the oregano, the chives--which already have spears ready for seasoning my baked potatoes. Several rue plants also have fresh bluish-green foliage. While rue is no longer used for cooking or medicinal purposes, it has a long history of association with herb gardens, and I like to include a few as a reminder of its historical prominence.
Amidst all this good news, one notable disappointment is the apparent death of the garden’s oldest rosemary bush. Because the rosemary is not winter hardy, I keep it in a large pot, which is dig up every fall and moved into the greenhouse. This fall, due to lack of space, I moved the rosemary home, and placed it in front of a sliding glass door next to the rosemary we keep at home. For whatever reason, Coe's rosemary did not like this new location, and I’ve seen no evidence of fresh growth since December. In April I will set the rosemary outdoors, cut it back, and see if by chance it manages to reassert itself. But I suspect this spring I will need to purchase a new rosemary for the herb garden. I hate to say goodby to the this rosemary, a plant over ten years old. It has developed a marvelously twisted thick trunk, suggestive of an ancient bonsai tree. It's an old friend that will be sadly missed.
Trash. Along the gravel walkway leading to the SW gate, the flower beds were littered with a stream of garbage: egg cartons, receipts from Walmart and Jiffy Lube, styrofoam cups and plates, Oreo and Reese’s candy wrappers, an empty lunch meat bag, water bottles, beer cans (mostly Busch Light), bags from Wendy’s and Arby’s, a cracked plastic cup from Starbucks, handwritten biology lecture notes, a small half-filled whiskey glass bottle. The last item reminded me of a canoe trip in the Boundary Waters where we found near our campsite a large glass bottle of Smirnoff’s Vodka. After pouring out the clear alcohol, we packed up the empty bottle in a Duluth bag, saving it for the recycling bin at the Wilderness Field Station. As for the Alumni Garden trash, I collected this sample of cultural artifacts in a spacious plastic crate and dumped everything–except for the recyclable beer cans--into a dumpster outside a student apartment. Although this was the largest litter collection I’ve had at the garden in several years, it was easier to deal with than the summer morning in 2014 when I found an old mattress that had been thrown over the garden wall.
On Saturday, the first day of spring, I had visited the garden at noon (God’s time, not Daylight Savings Time) because the sun was shining and I wanted a photo of the shadows cast on the seasonal sundial as it recorded the spring equinox. Due to an uneven spring thaw, the sundial was slightly unbalanced, but once the plate was level, the shadows were perfectly aligned. (See photo at the end of this report.)
As for the garden’s spring bulbs, the first wave of early bloomers is now in full swing: reticulated iris, crocus, winter aconites, snowdrops, one container of Tete-a-Tete daffodils (these benefitted from a head start in the greenhouse). The iris in the crevice garden were the first flowers to bloom this spring, one day ahead of the crocus. The ‘Eye Catcher’ iris have already begun to wither, but the ‘Katherine Hodgkin’ are at their peak–not only the ones in the crevice garden but two colonies planted around the floral sundial in front of the gazebo. The various crocus (yellows, purples, whites) planted two years ago in the beds in front of the terrace are doing well and some are beginning to naturalize; however, the Tommies in the lawn are not as vigorous this year. The number of these crocus is smaller--though the head count is complicated by their decision to emerge at different times. While some are at the end of their bloom cycle, many others are just breaking through the thatch. We’ll have to wait and see if the late arrivals decide to bloom.
Two recent visitors to the garden have asked me to identify the winter aconites. Although their blooms are small and low to the ground, the petals are a vibrant yellow that captures a viewer’s attention. The winter aconites I planted three years ago only came up one spring and never returned, but the second batch planted two years ago are doing much better and appear to be naturalizing. As for the early daffodils, the expected wet and cool temperatures for the remainder of this week may delay their full-throated arrival, but the many flower buds indicate by the end of the week the garden should be awash with yellow daffodil blossoms. Last fall I planted several more groups of the miniature Tete-a-Tetes daffodils, which should be among the first to bloom. I also created space for over 50 Pride of Lion bulbs, a newly developed daffodil with a broad, intensely yellow cup. They are likely to have a dramatic presence in the garden when they start blooming in late April or early May. Much sooner will be the yellow blossoms on the two forsythia bushes at the east end of the garden. Their flower buds are just beginning to open up, and their prime bloom period should arrive early next week. I did not prune the forsythia bushes last year, and while their form is distinctly wild and ungainly, I’m hoping they reward my indulgence with an unrestrained flurry of yellow blossoms. Fortuitously the two forsythia bushes are tucked away in remote corners of the garden. Once their blossoms wither away, the shrubs tend to retreat into the background. When I see them in bloom I’m invariably reminded of a late winter day in 1993, walking through Hyde Park in London and coming upon a group of Forsythia covered in yellow flowers. Almost thirty years later, I still relish the joy of that moment.
Once I finished picking up trash and monitoring the spring bulbs, I spent the remainder of the morning cleaning up the two raised herb beds on the south side of the garden. Because these beds are mostly in the shade in the late winter/early spring days, these beds can lag behind the sun-drenched north side, but this morning, I saw many signs of growth. A most unexpected gift is the re-emergence of a large bed of parsley. I started this parsley from seed in the greenhouse in 2019, thinking it would be an annual. Those initial four plants produced an excellent crop of parsley, and I planned to repeat the process the following spring. But last year I discovered that without my intervention the bed had a full and expanded colony of parsley plants. Since the parsley had so industriously self-seeded, I left them to do their own thing. The result was a huge parsley harvest–much of it given away but we also used it for making frozen pesto and several batches of Tabouli salad. Today, while clearing away old foliage, I discovered that last year’s parsley plants have survived the winter and are producing new leaves. These guys think they are a perennial and perhaps are intending to take over this herb bed. I need to see if my records identify what variety of parsley seeds I sowed in 2019. Several other plants in the herb garden are also producing new growth: the sage, the oregano, the chives--which already have spears ready for seasoning my baked potatoes. Several rue plants also have fresh bluish-green foliage. While rue is no longer used for cooking or medicinal purposes, it has a long history of association with herb gardens, and I like to include a few as a reminder of its historical prominence.
Amidst all this good news, one notable disappointment is the apparent death of the garden’s oldest rosemary bush. Because the rosemary is not winter hardy, I keep it in a large pot, which is dig up every fall and moved into the greenhouse. This fall, due to lack of space, I moved the rosemary home, and placed it in front of a sliding glass door next to the rosemary we keep at home. For whatever reason, Coe's rosemary did not like this new location, and I’ve seen no evidence of fresh growth since December. In April I will set the rosemary outdoors, cut it back, and see if by chance it manages to reassert itself. But I suspect this spring I will need to purchase a new rosemary for the herb garden. I hate to say goodby to the this rosemary, a plant over ten years old. It has developed a marvelously twisted thick trunk, suggestive of an ancient bonsai tree. It's an old friend that will be sadly missed.
Monday Morning Garden Report: 15 March 2021
After a divine week of early spring weather, it was painful to watch this morning’s wind and snow. When I arrived at the garden after lunch, the garden’s NW gate was unlocked and open, but the absence of any footprints in the recent snow suggested that no one had chosen this day for a leisurely stroll around the garden. Unlike last week, there were no sun worshipers sitting on a bench while eating their noon meal. As for the early spring bulbs, the blossoms of the yellow crocus, winter aconites, and snow drops in front of the patio were all sealed tight. The purple and white Tommies crocus scattered across the east end of the lawn were also firmly closed, but I was impressed by their erect stature in the ice and snow, patiently waiting for sunnier and warmer weather.
As I walked to the NW gate, I passed a group of 15-20 Tete-a-tete daffodils, their small yellow blooms resolutely open in this mini-blizzard. In the nearby crevice garden were two varieties of reticulated iris, ‘Katherine Hodgkin’ and ‘Eye Catcher.’ The blooms on these dwarf iris remain fully open, day or night, snow or no snow. The icy snow crystals on the ‘Katherine Hodgkin’ blend beautifully with the three large petals and their intricate patterns of blue lines radiating from a gold center accented with dark blue dots. There is also a wonderful group of these Dutch iris in the large sun dial’s flower bed in front of the gazebo. The blooms of these dwarf iris are as beautiful as any to be found in the garden throughout the year, but today they gained my special admiration because of their resolute toughness, unfazed by this late winter storm. Their blooms will only last for a few more days, but today they were incomparable. At the end of this report is a photo of several of the 'Eye Catcher' iris shot this weekend, shortly after their blossoms first opened.
Fortunately, because of last week’s warm and dry conditions, I was able to make some progress on cleaning up most of the perennial flower beds, particularly on the north side of the garden, where the snow melts much faster. Many of the plants with seedheads, the majority from the aster family, are left in the garden over the winter, providing birds with a potential food source. But once most of the winter’s snow had melted, I started cutting back last year’s foliage and preparing it to be shredded and added to one of our compost bins.
One major addition to the garden last week was the installation of another sculpture by Cara Briggs Farmer. We placed her 6' tall curved iron arc near the shrub rose in the middle of the “G” flower bed (south of the pergola). Later this spring I will move a clematis so that it can use this structure as a trellis. When I commissioned this sculpture last summer, we had intended to install the arc in the “H” flower bed on the other side of the pergola, but this new location is a more open, less cluttered area. The broad curves of this new sculpture quietly complements Cara’s “Trinity”–a larger and more muscular piece we installed two years ago in the southeast corner of the garden.
This past week I interviewed a dozen students for a Garden Assistant position, triple the number of applicants that usually inquire about working in the Alumni House Garden. Perhaps the increase reflects a desire to get outdoors and escape the perceived confinement spending so many hours in a residence hall. Not only was it a large group but I interviewed some marvelous candidates with a diverse range of backgrounds and interests–though, as usual, all the applicants were women. Since I did not have any student assistant in the fall or winter, I decided to hire a team of students for the remainder of the spring term, some of whom may continue working in the summer and fall. I trust these additional staff members will enable us to improve the garden’s appearance and expand our range of services. Should be fun.
After a divine week of early spring weather, it was painful to watch this morning’s wind and snow. When I arrived at the garden after lunch, the garden’s NW gate was unlocked and open, but the absence of any footprints in the recent snow suggested that no one had chosen this day for a leisurely stroll around the garden. Unlike last week, there were no sun worshipers sitting on a bench while eating their noon meal. As for the early spring bulbs, the blossoms of the yellow crocus, winter aconites, and snow drops in front of the patio were all sealed tight. The purple and white Tommies crocus scattered across the east end of the lawn were also firmly closed, but I was impressed by their erect stature in the ice and snow, patiently waiting for sunnier and warmer weather.
As I walked to the NW gate, I passed a group of 15-20 Tete-a-tete daffodils, their small yellow blooms resolutely open in this mini-blizzard. In the nearby crevice garden were two varieties of reticulated iris, ‘Katherine Hodgkin’ and ‘Eye Catcher.’ The blooms on these dwarf iris remain fully open, day or night, snow or no snow. The icy snow crystals on the ‘Katherine Hodgkin’ blend beautifully with the three large petals and their intricate patterns of blue lines radiating from a gold center accented with dark blue dots. There is also a wonderful group of these Dutch iris in the large sun dial’s flower bed in front of the gazebo. The blooms of these dwarf iris are as beautiful as any to be found in the garden throughout the year, but today they gained my special admiration because of their resolute toughness, unfazed by this late winter storm. Their blooms will only last for a few more days, but today they were incomparable. At the end of this report is a photo of several of the 'Eye Catcher' iris shot this weekend, shortly after their blossoms first opened.
Fortunately, because of last week’s warm and dry conditions, I was able to make some progress on cleaning up most of the perennial flower beds, particularly on the north side of the garden, where the snow melts much faster. Many of the plants with seedheads, the majority from the aster family, are left in the garden over the winter, providing birds with a potential food source. But once most of the winter’s snow had melted, I started cutting back last year’s foliage and preparing it to be shredded and added to one of our compost bins.
One major addition to the garden last week was the installation of another sculpture by Cara Briggs Farmer. We placed her 6' tall curved iron arc near the shrub rose in the middle of the “G” flower bed (south of the pergola). Later this spring I will move a clematis so that it can use this structure as a trellis. When I commissioned this sculpture last summer, we had intended to install the arc in the “H” flower bed on the other side of the pergola, but this new location is a more open, less cluttered area. The broad curves of this new sculpture quietly complements Cara’s “Trinity”–a larger and more muscular piece we installed two years ago in the southeast corner of the garden.
This past week I interviewed a dozen students for a Garden Assistant position, triple the number of applicants that usually inquire about working in the Alumni House Garden. Perhaps the increase reflects a desire to get outdoors and escape the perceived confinement spending so many hours in a residence hall. Not only was it a large group but I interviewed some marvelous candidates with a diverse range of backgrounds and interests–though, as usual, all the applicants were women. Since I did not have any student assistant in the fall or winter, I decided to hire a team of students for the remainder of the spring term, some of whom may continue working in the summer and fall. I trust these additional staff members will enable us to improve the garden’s appearance and expand our range of services. Should be fun.
Monday Morning Garden Report: 22 February 2021
In the summers when I was teaching a nature writing course at Coe’s Wilderness Field Station in northern Minnesota, I would occasionally need to trim my beard. This operation involved locating my scissors and foldable mirror, positioning the mirror on a large bolder outside my cabin, placing my spectacles next to the mirror (the eyeglasses needed to be removed because it was impossible to tilt my bifocals at the right angle), and commence snipping. I depended on this large egg-shaped granite (at least I thought it was granite) because it had a perfect niche for holding the mirror at the right height and angle. During this beard-trimming routine, I would usually take a few minutes to study the rock’s mosses and lichens, intrigued by their terrain choices, their diverse textures, their variety in color and shape. Some lichens were stationed at the top of the rock, some around the broad belly, some near the ground; some preferred the open, exposed surfaces; others sought the protected nesting area where I positioned my mirror and eyeglasses. I did recall from high school biology that lichens are composed of an alga and a fungus wedded in a symbiotic relationship, but there has been virtually no expansion of my lichen knowledge in the last 60 years. In a book I recently read on wildlife in British cemeteries, the author mentioned a single cemetery might have over 100 different lichen species–a number that inspired a quick Google search. A few paragraphs posted on a U.S. Forest Service website informed me there are over 3,600 species of lichen species in North America, and new species are being discovered every year.
I mention my ten minutes of lichen research because I was shoveling snow in the Coe garden this morning, trying to make it possible for a human to walk around the garden’s perimeter without trudging through the 12-18" thick layer of snow covering the gravel walkways. Approaching the SW park bench I noticed a beautiful orange lichen spread across the top of a bench leg, a discovery which led me to start looking at the lichen specimens covering the bench’s seat and legs. The orange species was always located in protected areas, always on a vertical plane, never on a flat horizontal surface. Given my limited knowledge of lichen species, it’s impossible for me to determine how many different species are on the bench, but I feel reasonably confident I found at least five other species. Here was a lichen garden, thriving in the middle of the winter, requiring zero assistance from any gardener. Actually, I am due some appreciation from the local lichen community. When I first started taking care of the Alumni House Garden, someone offered to bring in a jet-spray washer and clean up the park benches. I’m thankful I said, “no thanks.” I like the benches’ rustic, weathered look.
Since I had never paid much attention to the garden bench lichen, I decided to scrape a small chunk of the orange lichen onto a white note card and examine it under my small 10x loupe magnifying glass and a 40x microscope in the garden shed. I lack the skill or knowledge to accurately describe or draw the fascinating and complex landscape revealed by the magnification, but it was fascinating to see all the tiny yellowish-green globules that covered the tips of the individual lichen “leaves.” Inspired by the lichens’ complex and visually beautiful terrain, I pulled out my Canon camera and took two dozen close-up photos of lichen on several different benches and on the limbs of an apple tree. I was surprised to discover that all the lichen on the flowering crab trees were at higher elevations, beginning about 6' above the ground. Once I downloaded and magnified those photos, I found two lichen species that I had not initially seen with the naked eye, and in one area–perhaps a 2" square--I could identify five different species. Of course, I don’t yet know any of their names. I need to do a second Google search.
Here’s a short slideshow with nine photos of my Lichen Garden, images captured before returning to my snow shoveling duties. ~Bob
In the summers when I was teaching a nature writing course at Coe’s Wilderness Field Station in northern Minnesota, I would occasionally need to trim my beard. This operation involved locating my scissors and foldable mirror, positioning the mirror on a large bolder outside my cabin, placing my spectacles next to the mirror (the eyeglasses needed to be removed because it was impossible to tilt my bifocals at the right angle), and commence snipping. I depended on this large egg-shaped granite (at least I thought it was granite) because it had a perfect niche for holding the mirror at the right height and angle. During this beard-trimming routine, I would usually take a few minutes to study the rock’s mosses and lichens, intrigued by their terrain choices, their diverse textures, their variety in color and shape. Some lichens were stationed at the top of the rock, some around the broad belly, some near the ground; some preferred the open, exposed surfaces; others sought the protected nesting area where I positioned my mirror and eyeglasses. I did recall from high school biology that lichens are composed of an alga and a fungus wedded in a symbiotic relationship, but there has been virtually no expansion of my lichen knowledge in the last 60 years. In a book I recently read on wildlife in British cemeteries, the author mentioned a single cemetery might have over 100 different lichen species–a number that inspired a quick Google search. A few paragraphs posted on a U.S. Forest Service website informed me there are over 3,600 species of lichen species in North America, and new species are being discovered every year.
I mention my ten minutes of lichen research because I was shoveling snow in the Coe garden this morning, trying to make it possible for a human to walk around the garden’s perimeter without trudging through the 12-18" thick layer of snow covering the gravel walkways. Approaching the SW park bench I noticed a beautiful orange lichen spread across the top of a bench leg, a discovery which led me to start looking at the lichen specimens covering the bench’s seat and legs. The orange species was always located in protected areas, always on a vertical plane, never on a flat horizontal surface. Given my limited knowledge of lichen species, it’s impossible for me to determine how many different species are on the bench, but I feel reasonably confident I found at least five other species. Here was a lichen garden, thriving in the middle of the winter, requiring zero assistance from any gardener. Actually, I am due some appreciation from the local lichen community. When I first started taking care of the Alumni House Garden, someone offered to bring in a jet-spray washer and clean up the park benches. I’m thankful I said, “no thanks.” I like the benches’ rustic, weathered look.
Since I had never paid much attention to the garden bench lichen, I decided to scrape a small chunk of the orange lichen onto a white note card and examine it under my small 10x loupe magnifying glass and a 40x microscope in the garden shed. I lack the skill or knowledge to accurately describe or draw the fascinating and complex landscape revealed by the magnification, but it was fascinating to see all the tiny yellowish-green globules that covered the tips of the individual lichen “leaves.” Inspired by the lichens’ complex and visually beautiful terrain, I pulled out my Canon camera and took two dozen close-up photos of lichen on several different benches and on the limbs of an apple tree. I was surprised to discover that all the lichen on the flowering crab trees were at higher elevations, beginning about 6' above the ground. Once I downloaded and magnified those photos, I found two lichen species that I had not initially seen with the naked eye, and in one area–perhaps a 2" square--I could identify five different species. Of course, I don’t yet know any of their names. I need to do a second Google search.
Here’s a short slideshow with nine photos of my Lichen Garden, images captured before returning to my snow shoveling duties. ~Bob
Monday Morning Garden Report: 15 February 2021
This morning our garage thermometer registered minus ten degrees, cold enough to convince me that today’s gardening would happen indoors. Since my last garden report concentrated on the plants overwintering in the greenhouse, it seemed appropriate for today’s report to introduce flower seeds to be sown later this week. Although in recent years I have concentrated on expanding the use of expanded masses of flowers, I have also been introducing more examples of flowers that often operate as solitary soldiers and produce flowers on vertical spikes that rise above the foliage of neighboring plants. Examples would include many of the alliums, Verbena bonariensis, blazing stars, native columbine. I hope this year to expand the presence of flowers with these qualities (such as foxgloves, delphiniums, hollyhocks) while also using more potted flowers and transplanted annuals to fill in bare spaces or hide the foliage of old bulbs. What follows is a list of twenty seeds–all from Select Seeds in Union, Connecticut--that will begin their germination process later this week. I am relying on this supplier because I’ve had good success with their seeds in the past. They have a neatly organized catalog with good photos, and they offer a wide range of flowers (both species and hybrids) packaged in seed packets that include detailed seed sowing instructions and practical information on each flower’s soil, light, watering, and fertilizing preferences. I’ve sorted the 21 seeds into two groups: (1) seeds requiring seed stratification in a refrigerator before being sown in a germination mix and (2) seeds to be sown indoors one or more months prior to being transplanted after the last frost date–for our purposes estimated to be about May 15.
Seeds to be stratified in refrigerator prior to sowing
• Antirrhinum majus ‘Rocket Orchid’ Snapdragon (OP heirloom annual; chill seeds for 2 days in refrigerator before sowing; sow on surface in vermiculite 8-10 weeks before last spring frost; water only from below; seeds require light to germinate; transplant in full sun after last frost; 12-14 weeks from seed to bloom; fertilize once per month with organic water soluble fertilizer; long bloom cycle of pink blossoms, good tolerance to summer heat. )
• Aquilegia ‘Crimson Star’ Columbine (OP heirloom; Z3 perennial; prefers rich, moist, well-drained soil; stratify seeds by placing in moist paper towels for 3 weeks in refrigerator; surface sow or barely cover 8-10 weeks before last frost date; transplant after last frost date to area with full sun or partial shade; fertilize with compost; compact plant produces red flowers with pure white corolla; may self sow.)
• Asclepias tuberosa ‘Hello Yellow’ Butterfly Weed (OP Z3 perennial; recommended sowing outdoors 4 weeks before last spring frost date or sow indoors 12 weeks before last frost date; stratify seed by placing seeds in moist paper towels in plastic bag and store in refrigerator for 3 weeks, then sow in pots at 60-70F; sprout time of 20-40 days; set seedlings outside after last frost date; plant in full sun; fertilize with compost in the spring; bright flat-topped yellow blooms in summer and fall.)
• Delphinium x belladonna ‘CT Yankee Mix’ (OP heirloom Z3 perennial; prefers rich, moist, well-drained soil in full sun or partial shade; mature size 2-3' tall; recommended direct sowing in early spring or can sow seeds indoors 8 weeks before transplanting; stratify seed by placing between moist paper towels in plastic bag in refrigerator for two weeks; vermiculite preferred growing medium; germinates best in darkness; fertilize and top-dress with compost; produces variety of blue florets on upright spikes.)
• Eryngium planum ‘Blaukappe’ Sea Holly (OP heirloom Z4 perennial; recommended germinating indoors; store in refrigerator for 4 weeks and surface sow in pots 10-16 weeks before last frost; seeds require light to germinate and prefer temp at 70-75F until germination occurs and then 55-60F; transplant in spring after last frost date in full sun, well-drained soil; do not disturb root system when transplanting; ‘Blue Cap’ has dark green leathery basal leaves and in summer produces strong branching stems with steel-blue blooms and long-lasting, showy bracts; good cut flower; low maintenance; need not be fertilized; can provide fresh compost in spring.
• Primula veris ‘Cowslip’ Primrose' (OP heirloom Z3 perennial; store in damp paper towel for 1 month to break dormancy; surface sow at 60-65F; requires light to germinate; after last frost date transplant to rich, moist, well-drained soil in sun or partial shade; fertilize with minimal nitrogen and ½ strength solution of high potash or tomato fertilizer prior to flowering and after flowering; good for rock gardens; early spring bloom of yellow flowers; should divide every 2-3 years after flowering.)
• Rudbeckia triloba ‘Prairie Glow’ Rudbeckia (OP Z4 short-lived Iowa prairie native perennial; store in refrigerator for 2-4 months; sow slightly covered seeds 8 weeks before last frost and after last frost transplant to regular, moist, well-drained soil in full sun or partial shade; plants are bushy, 3-5' tall; fertilize with compost; red-orange flowers with yellow tips and dark chocolate cones in summer & fall; may self-sow.)
Seeds to be sown in greenhouse in February or March
• Alcea ficifolia ‘Happy Lights’ Fig Hollyhock (OP heirloom; Z3 biennial or short-lived perennial; grows 6-8' tall; plant in rich, moist, well-drained soil in full sun; surface sow indoors 6-8 weeks before last frost date; sow at 35-40F for 10 days and then 60-70F; germination 13-25 days after chill; transplant after last frost date; fertilize with compost; cut back after bloom to stimulate return of blooms following summer; may self sow.)
• Alcea rugosa Hollyhock (OP heirloom; Z4 perennial; 6-8' tall; sow indoors 6-8 weeks before transplant; keep at 35-40F for 10 days, then at 60-70F; maintain moist conditions; after last frost transplant to rich, moist, well-drained soil in full sun; fertilize with compost; sturdy Russian heirloom with lemon-yellow blooms; good rust resistance; may self-sow.)
• Asarina scandens ‘Snowwhite’ (OP heirloom annual; 6-8' vine; sow indoors 10-12 weeks before transplanting after last frost to rich, moist, well-drained soil in full sun or partial shade; surface sow and press in lightly; 10-20 days for germination; fertilize once per month with organic, water-soluble fertilizer; requires trellis; white blossoms on long-blooming vines; handles heat and humidity.)
• Dianthus superbus Fringed Pink ‘Ambrosia’ (OP heirloom Z3 perennial; sow in soilless seed starting mix 6-8 weeks before last frost; maintain humidity and at 65-70F; after last frost transplant to regular, moist, well-drained soil in full sun; fertilize with compost or low-nitrogen granular organic fertilizer; edible flowers with sweet clove scent; 1-2' tall, flowering in spring and early summer; may self sow.)
• Digitalis ferruginea ‘Gigantea Gelber Herold’ Rusty Foxglove (Z4 biennial or short-lived perennial; 10-12 weeks before last frost, surface sow seeds–lightly pressed into germination mix; transplant to regular, well-drained soil in full sun to partial shade; may self seed–or cut back after flowering to increase likelihood foxglove will return following year; 5' tall with yellow flowers and interior rusty veining.)
• Digitallis purpurea hyb. ‘Dalmation Peach’ Foxglove (F1 Z4 biennial or short-lived hybrid perennial foxglove with peachy pink blooms; compact and upright in growth; June flowers and might bloom the first year; grow in location with relatively dry winter soil; sow seed Feb 15 in germinating mix; transplant outside by the middle of May.)
• Impatiens balsamina Balsam (OP heirloom annual; surface sow seeds indoors in vermiculite 6-8 weeks before last frost; seeds need light to germinate; keep at 65-75F; after last frost, transplant into rich, moist, well-drained soil in full sun to partial shade; mature height 2' tall; blooms appear 10-12 weeks after sowing seed; flowers are varied colors of pink, red, salmon, violet lasting through summer and into fall; may self sow.)
• Lychnis chalcedonica Maltese Cross (Z4 OP heirloom perennial; surface sow and lightly press in seeds 6-8 weeks before last frost; needs light to germinate; keep at 65-70F and soil moist but not soggy; germination time of 7-21 days; transplant in regular, well-drained soil after last spring frost; fertilize with compost; 3' tall plants with bright red flowers; may self sow.)
• Monarda citriodora Lemon Bergamot Bee Balm (OP heirloom annual; sow seeds, barely covered, indoors 8 weeks before last frost date at 65-70F; after last frost, transplant to sandy, well-drained soil with full sun to partial shade; fertilize with mulch; mature height of 1-3'; large upright blooms and lemon-scented leaves.)
• Persicaria orientalis ‘Cerise Pearls’ Kiss-me-over-the-garden-gate (OP annual; sow indoors 6-8 weeks before last frost; keep soil at 35-45F until germination occurs, then at 60-70F; transplant outdoors after last frost date in rich, moist, well-drained soil in full sun; no fertilizer required; 4-5' tall plants produce tassels of cherry-red flowers in summer and fall; attracts pollinators; excellent as cut or dried flower; may self sow.)
• Ratibida columnifera Mexican Hat (OP heirloom Z4 perennial; sow in vermiculite 6-8 weeks before last frost; temp at 35-40F for 4 weeks, then 65-75; after last frost date, transplant to regular, well-drained soil in full sun; fertilize with compost; vigorous growth; tolerates dry conditions; 1-3' plants with leafless stalks bearing sombrero-shaped flower heads of 3-7 yellow or yellow and red-brown, drooping rays surrounding a long, red-brown central disk.)
• Tagetes erecta ‘Yellow Supreme’ African Marigold (OP heirloom annual; sow barely covered seeds indoors 6-8 weeks before last frost; transplant in full sun to regular, moist, well-drained soil after last frost; minimal fertilizer; plants 2' high; flowers have ruffled petals, maximum bloom in late season; repels some insect pests; deadhead regularly.)
• Tagetes petula ‘Frances’ Choice’ Marigold (Annual to be planted in rich, moist, well-drained soil in full sun; sow indoors in vermiculite 6-8 weeks before last frost; just cover seeds; tidy 3-4' tall plants with dark red-purple single flowers and gold rim around each petal.)
•Thymus serpyllum ‘Magic Carpet’ Creeping Thyme (OP Z4 perennial; plant in full sun, well-drained soil; rosy pink blooms appear in summer; nectar-rich flowers attract bees; surface sow seeds indoors Feb 15; seeds can be slow to germinate; mix compost into soil prior to transplanting.)
This morning our garage thermometer registered minus ten degrees, cold enough to convince me that today’s gardening would happen indoors. Since my last garden report concentrated on the plants overwintering in the greenhouse, it seemed appropriate for today’s report to introduce flower seeds to be sown later this week. Although in recent years I have concentrated on expanding the use of expanded masses of flowers, I have also been introducing more examples of flowers that often operate as solitary soldiers and produce flowers on vertical spikes that rise above the foliage of neighboring plants. Examples would include many of the alliums, Verbena bonariensis, blazing stars, native columbine. I hope this year to expand the presence of flowers with these qualities (such as foxgloves, delphiniums, hollyhocks) while also using more potted flowers and transplanted annuals to fill in bare spaces or hide the foliage of old bulbs. What follows is a list of twenty seeds–all from Select Seeds in Union, Connecticut--that will begin their germination process later this week. I am relying on this supplier because I’ve had good success with their seeds in the past. They have a neatly organized catalog with good photos, and they offer a wide range of flowers (both species and hybrids) packaged in seed packets that include detailed seed sowing instructions and practical information on each flower’s soil, light, watering, and fertilizing preferences. I’ve sorted the 21 seeds into two groups: (1) seeds requiring seed stratification in a refrigerator before being sown in a germination mix and (2) seeds to be sown indoors one or more months prior to being transplanted after the last frost date–for our purposes estimated to be about May 15.
Seeds to be stratified in refrigerator prior to sowing
• Antirrhinum majus ‘Rocket Orchid’ Snapdragon (OP heirloom annual; chill seeds for 2 days in refrigerator before sowing; sow on surface in vermiculite 8-10 weeks before last spring frost; water only from below; seeds require light to germinate; transplant in full sun after last frost; 12-14 weeks from seed to bloom; fertilize once per month with organic water soluble fertilizer; long bloom cycle of pink blossoms, good tolerance to summer heat. )
• Aquilegia ‘Crimson Star’ Columbine (OP heirloom; Z3 perennial; prefers rich, moist, well-drained soil; stratify seeds by placing in moist paper towels for 3 weeks in refrigerator; surface sow or barely cover 8-10 weeks before last frost date; transplant after last frost date to area with full sun or partial shade; fertilize with compost; compact plant produces red flowers with pure white corolla; may self sow.)
• Asclepias tuberosa ‘Hello Yellow’ Butterfly Weed (OP Z3 perennial; recommended sowing outdoors 4 weeks before last spring frost date or sow indoors 12 weeks before last frost date; stratify seed by placing seeds in moist paper towels in plastic bag and store in refrigerator for 3 weeks, then sow in pots at 60-70F; sprout time of 20-40 days; set seedlings outside after last frost date; plant in full sun; fertilize with compost in the spring; bright flat-topped yellow blooms in summer and fall.)
• Delphinium x belladonna ‘CT Yankee Mix’ (OP heirloom Z3 perennial; prefers rich, moist, well-drained soil in full sun or partial shade; mature size 2-3' tall; recommended direct sowing in early spring or can sow seeds indoors 8 weeks before transplanting; stratify seed by placing between moist paper towels in plastic bag in refrigerator for two weeks; vermiculite preferred growing medium; germinates best in darkness; fertilize and top-dress with compost; produces variety of blue florets on upright spikes.)
• Eryngium planum ‘Blaukappe’ Sea Holly (OP heirloom Z4 perennial; recommended germinating indoors; store in refrigerator for 4 weeks and surface sow in pots 10-16 weeks before last frost; seeds require light to germinate and prefer temp at 70-75F until germination occurs and then 55-60F; transplant in spring after last frost date in full sun, well-drained soil; do not disturb root system when transplanting; ‘Blue Cap’ has dark green leathery basal leaves and in summer produces strong branching stems with steel-blue blooms and long-lasting, showy bracts; good cut flower; low maintenance; need not be fertilized; can provide fresh compost in spring.
• Primula veris ‘Cowslip’ Primrose' (OP heirloom Z3 perennial; store in damp paper towel for 1 month to break dormancy; surface sow at 60-65F; requires light to germinate; after last frost date transplant to rich, moist, well-drained soil in sun or partial shade; fertilize with minimal nitrogen and ½ strength solution of high potash or tomato fertilizer prior to flowering and after flowering; good for rock gardens; early spring bloom of yellow flowers; should divide every 2-3 years after flowering.)
• Rudbeckia triloba ‘Prairie Glow’ Rudbeckia (OP Z4 short-lived Iowa prairie native perennial; store in refrigerator for 2-4 months; sow slightly covered seeds 8 weeks before last frost and after last frost transplant to regular, moist, well-drained soil in full sun or partial shade; plants are bushy, 3-5' tall; fertilize with compost; red-orange flowers with yellow tips and dark chocolate cones in summer & fall; may self-sow.)
Seeds to be sown in greenhouse in February or March
• Alcea ficifolia ‘Happy Lights’ Fig Hollyhock (OP heirloom; Z3 biennial or short-lived perennial; grows 6-8' tall; plant in rich, moist, well-drained soil in full sun; surface sow indoors 6-8 weeks before last frost date; sow at 35-40F for 10 days and then 60-70F; germination 13-25 days after chill; transplant after last frost date; fertilize with compost; cut back after bloom to stimulate return of blooms following summer; may self sow.)
• Alcea rugosa Hollyhock (OP heirloom; Z4 perennial; 6-8' tall; sow indoors 6-8 weeks before transplant; keep at 35-40F for 10 days, then at 60-70F; maintain moist conditions; after last frost transplant to rich, moist, well-drained soil in full sun; fertilize with compost; sturdy Russian heirloom with lemon-yellow blooms; good rust resistance; may self-sow.)
• Asarina scandens ‘Snowwhite’ (OP heirloom annual; 6-8' vine; sow indoors 10-12 weeks before transplanting after last frost to rich, moist, well-drained soil in full sun or partial shade; surface sow and press in lightly; 10-20 days for germination; fertilize once per month with organic, water-soluble fertilizer; requires trellis; white blossoms on long-blooming vines; handles heat and humidity.)
• Dianthus superbus Fringed Pink ‘Ambrosia’ (OP heirloom Z3 perennial; sow in soilless seed starting mix 6-8 weeks before last frost; maintain humidity and at 65-70F; after last frost transplant to regular, moist, well-drained soil in full sun; fertilize with compost or low-nitrogen granular organic fertilizer; edible flowers with sweet clove scent; 1-2' tall, flowering in spring and early summer; may self sow.)
• Digitalis ferruginea ‘Gigantea Gelber Herold’ Rusty Foxglove (Z4 biennial or short-lived perennial; 10-12 weeks before last frost, surface sow seeds–lightly pressed into germination mix; transplant to regular, well-drained soil in full sun to partial shade; may self seed–or cut back after flowering to increase likelihood foxglove will return following year; 5' tall with yellow flowers and interior rusty veining.)
• Digitallis purpurea hyb. ‘Dalmation Peach’ Foxglove (F1 Z4 biennial or short-lived hybrid perennial foxglove with peachy pink blooms; compact and upright in growth; June flowers and might bloom the first year; grow in location with relatively dry winter soil; sow seed Feb 15 in germinating mix; transplant outside by the middle of May.)
• Impatiens balsamina Balsam (OP heirloom annual; surface sow seeds indoors in vermiculite 6-8 weeks before last frost; seeds need light to germinate; keep at 65-75F; after last frost, transplant into rich, moist, well-drained soil in full sun to partial shade; mature height 2' tall; blooms appear 10-12 weeks after sowing seed; flowers are varied colors of pink, red, salmon, violet lasting through summer and into fall; may self sow.)
• Lychnis chalcedonica Maltese Cross (Z4 OP heirloom perennial; surface sow and lightly press in seeds 6-8 weeks before last frost; needs light to germinate; keep at 65-70F and soil moist but not soggy; germination time of 7-21 days; transplant in regular, well-drained soil after last spring frost; fertilize with compost; 3' tall plants with bright red flowers; may self sow.)
• Monarda citriodora Lemon Bergamot Bee Balm (OP heirloom annual; sow seeds, barely covered, indoors 8 weeks before last frost date at 65-70F; after last frost, transplant to sandy, well-drained soil with full sun to partial shade; fertilize with mulch; mature height of 1-3'; large upright blooms and lemon-scented leaves.)
• Persicaria orientalis ‘Cerise Pearls’ Kiss-me-over-the-garden-gate (OP annual; sow indoors 6-8 weeks before last frost; keep soil at 35-45F until germination occurs, then at 60-70F; transplant outdoors after last frost date in rich, moist, well-drained soil in full sun; no fertilizer required; 4-5' tall plants produce tassels of cherry-red flowers in summer and fall; attracts pollinators; excellent as cut or dried flower; may self sow.)
• Ratibida columnifera Mexican Hat (OP heirloom Z4 perennial; sow in vermiculite 6-8 weeks before last frost; temp at 35-40F for 4 weeks, then 65-75; after last frost date, transplant to regular, well-drained soil in full sun; fertilize with compost; vigorous growth; tolerates dry conditions; 1-3' plants with leafless stalks bearing sombrero-shaped flower heads of 3-7 yellow or yellow and red-brown, drooping rays surrounding a long, red-brown central disk.)
• Tagetes erecta ‘Yellow Supreme’ African Marigold (OP heirloom annual; sow barely covered seeds indoors 6-8 weeks before last frost; transplant in full sun to regular, moist, well-drained soil after last frost; minimal fertilizer; plants 2' high; flowers have ruffled petals, maximum bloom in late season; repels some insect pests; deadhead regularly.)
• Tagetes petula ‘Frances’ Choice’ Marigold (Annual to be planted in rich, moist, well-drained soil in full sun; sow indoors in vermiculite 6-8 weeks before last frost; just cover seeds; tidy 3-4' tall plants with dark red-purple single flowers and gold rim around each petal.)
•Thymus serpyllum ‘Magic Carpet’ Creeping Thyme (OP Z4 perennial; plant in full sun, well-drained soil; rosy pink blooms appear in summer; nectar-rich flowers attract bees; surface sow seeds indoors Feb 15; seeds can be slow to germinate; mix compost into soil prior to transplanting.)
Monday Morning Garden Report: 25 January 2021
I was expecting a substantial snow storm to arrive this afternoon, so I went to the garden first thing this morning to make sure the two space heaters in the greenhouse and garden shed were working (they were) and to water plants. I decided this might a good time for cataloguing the plants in the greenhouse before I start sowing the flower, herb, and vegetable seeds for spring-time planting. I’m not sure where some of these plants will go–which in a few cases is why they were never planted last summer.
• 'Blushing Lady' Tulips (After planting tulips in the two tulip/dahlia beds and several other areas, I still had 20 extras so I covered them with potting soil in half-a-dozen medium-sized pots; several tulip leaves are just beginning to emerge.)
• Two Columbine hybrids (Purchased last spring, they never got planted and by July had disappeared in their coco-fiber pots, but they miraculously revived in the fall and now look quite healthy.)
• Toad Lilies (Two ‘Dark Beauty’ and one ‘Sinonome’ that will be planted in one of the garden’s three existing toad lily colonies–though the newest colony in the “A2" bed may only have one Tricyrtis that survived the summer.)
• Zagreb Tickseed (Two tiny coreopsis are still alive in their 3" plastic pot, but I’ve seen no signs of new growth since I brought them into the greenhouse in November.)
• 10 Daylilies, including these varieties that will be new additions to the garden this spring:
* ‘Early Bird Oriole’ (Medium-size, mid-season, ruffled golden-orange blossoms with a deeper orange eyezone and a chartreuse throat.)
* ‘Black Arrowhead’ (Mid-season, large mauve-purple spider blooms with a darker purple eyezone around a soft yellow throat; I’ve never been a big fan of spider bloom daylilies, but I was really attracted to the photos for this variety.)
* ‘Forty Second’ (Mid-season, double pastel-pink, 5" flowers with rose-red eye zones and chartreuse throats.)
• ‘Always Afternoon’ (Early 5" raspberry pink blooms with yellow/chartreuse eye.)
• 4 Rudbeckia Maxima (Great Rudbeckia Dumbo's Ears; also called a cabbage leaf coneflower because of the large basal leaves; plants should grow 4-6' tall with golden coneflower petals around large central cones; hope to plant them at the back of the “I” bed next to the tall, late-season Minaret daylilies; some birds should be attracted to the seeds.)
• Pennisetum alopecuroides ‘Foxtrot’ (Common names are Fountain Grass & Pearl Millet; should form a clump of narrow green foliage topped in summer with pink-tinted 6-8” plumes that sway in the breeze–thus the cultivar’s dance name; should not self-seed.)
• 4 ‘Brilliant’ Upright Stonecrop (These are tough dudes; they never got planted after their arrival in May and were left to fend for themselves through the summer, but they all survived and are all now growing vigorously.)
• Daffodils (Planted the leftover Tete-a-Tete bulbs in several pots; they should have had longer cold storage before planting, but most of them are beginning to emerge.)
• Snowdrops (Three varieties: Galanthus elwesii, G. nivalis, & G. woronowii; while I managed last fall to plant over 200 snowdrops in the garden, I still had almost 200 orphans; they are now in about 15 different pots, in some instances mixed with other bulbs or plants; many are just beginning to emerge, and one is now blooming--first flower for 2021; I should be able to plant them this spring after they have finished blooming–and some horticulturists recommend the best time for planting snowdrops is in the spring shortly after their flowers fade.)
• Siberian Squill (Same scenario as with the snowdrops but much smaller number; at home I probably have 500 squill I dug up in my backyard last fall that are now in cold storage in a garden shed at home.)
• Allium sphaerocephalon (Planted dozens of allium throughout the garden but after the ground froze I discovered a bag containing 100 of these small allium I had missed; some I planted in two large pots with other plants; the remainder I placed in the refrigerator and will try planting this spring as soon as the ground thaws.)
• Jacob’s Ladder (One large pot requisitioned for the snowdrops had no visible plant remains; using my dibble I made a dozen holes in the soil for the snowdrop bulbs, watered the soil, and brought it into the greenhouse; within a week, compound leaves began to emerge, definitely not snowdrops; the plants are now almost a foot tall and I’m guessing these are from Jacob’s Ladder seeds I sowed last spring.)
• Iris histrioides ‘Katherine’s Gold’ (I had a dozen extra reticulated iris bulbs so I stuck them into two pots; so far I’ve not seen any signs of life; I hope they emerge because they would be a beautiful indoor flower.)
• Salvia pratensis ‘Ballerina Pink’ (A hybrid meadow sage from Walters Gardens; I’m not sure why it didn’t get planted last summer.)
• French Tarragon (I am confused on how to treat the garden’s lone French Tarragon. I have read that French Tarragon is a tender perennial that would not survive an Iowa winter, and so I’ve kept our tarragon in a pot and brought it into the greenhouse each fall; in the fall of 2019 I never got it dug up, but in the spring it re-emerged, demonstrating it could survive at least one Iowa winter. In November I did dig up the pot and brought it into the greenhouse, but now I’ve read on several websites that French Tarragon is hardy even in a Zone 4 garden; I’ve also read that they do much better when they are not grown in a pot, so this spring I will take the tarragon out of the pot, give it a permanent home in the herb garden, and see how well it enjoys its new freedom.) ~Bob
I was expecting a substantial snow storm to arrive this afternoon, so I went to the garden first thing this morning to make sure the two space heaters in the greenhouse and garden shed were working (they were) and to water plants. I decided this might a good time for cataloguing the plants in the greenhouse before I start sowing the flower, herb, and vegetable seeds for spring-time planting. I’m not sure where some of these plants will go–which in a few cases is why they were never planted last summer.
• 'Blushing Lady' Tulips (After planting tulips in the two tulip/dahlia beds and several other areas, I still had 20 extras so I covered them with potting soil in half-a-dozen medium-sized pots; several tulip leaves are just beginning to emerge.)
• Two Columbine hybrids (Purchased last spring, they never got planted and by July had disappeared in their coco-fiber pots, but they miraculously revived in the fall and now look quite healthy.)
• Toad Lilies (Two ‘Dark Beauty’ and one ‘Sinonome’ that will be planted in one of the garden’s three existing toad lily colonies–though the newest colony in the “A2" bed may only have one Tricyrtis that survived the summer.)
• Zagreb Tickseed (Two tiny coreopsis are still alive in their 3" plastic pot, but I’ve seen no signs of new growth since I brought them into the greenhouse in November.)
• 10 Daylilies, including these varieties that will be new additions to the garden this spring:
* ‘Early Bird Oriole’ (Medium-size, mid-season, ruffled golden-orange blossoms with a deeper orange eyezone and a chartreuse throat.)
* ‘Black Arrowhead’ (Mid-season, large mauve-purple spider blooms with a darker purple eyezone around a soft yellow throat; I’ve never been a big fan of spider bloom daylilies, but I was really attracted to the photos for this variety.)
* ‘Forty Second’ (Mid-season, double pastel-pink, 5" flowers with rose-red eye zones and chartreuse throats.)
• ‘Always Afternoon’ (Early 5" raspberry pink blooms with yellow/chartreuse eye.)
• 4 Rudbeckia Maxima (Great Rudbeckia Dumbo's Ears; also called a cabbage leaf coneflower because of the large basal leaves; plants should grow 4-6' tall with golden coneflower petals around large central cones; hope to plant them at the back of the “I” bed next to the tall, late-season Minaret daylilies; some birds should be attracted to the seeds.)
• Pennisetum alopecuroides ‘Foxtrot’ (Common names are Fountain Grass & Pearl Millet; should form a clump of narrow green foliage topped in summer with pink-tinted 6-8” plumes that sway in the breeze–thus the cultivar’s dance name; should not self-seed.)
• 4 ‘Brilliant’ Upright Stonecrop (These are tough dudes; they never got planted after their arrival in May and were left to fend for themselves through the summer, but they all survived and are all now growing vigorously.)
• Daffodils (Planted the leftover Tete-a-Tete bulbs in several pots; they should have had longer cold storage before planting, but most of them are beginning to emerge.)
• Snowdrops (Three varieties: Galanthus elwesii, G. nivalis, & G. woronowii; while I managed last fall to plant over 200 snowdrops in the garden, I still had almost 200 orphans; they are now in about 15 different pots, in some instances mixed with other bulbs or plants; many are just beginning to emerge, and one is now blooming--first flower for 2021; I should be able to plant them this spring after they have finished blooming–and some horticulturists recommend the best time for planting snowdrops is in the spring shortly after their flowers fade.)
• Siberian Squill (Same scenario as with the snowdrops but much smaller number; at home I probably have 500 squill I dug up in my backyard last fall that are now in cold storage in a garden shed at home.)
• Allium sphaerocephalon (Planted dozens of allium throughout the garden but after the ground froze I discovered a bag containing 100 of these small allium I had missed; some I planted in two large pots with other plants; the remainder I placed in the refrigerator and will try planting this spring as soon as the ground thaws.)
• Jacob’s Ladder (One large pot requisitioned for the snowdrops had no visible plant remains; using my dibble I made a dozen holes in the soil for the snowdrop bulbs, watered the soil, and brought it into the greenhouse; within a week, compound leaves began to emerge, definitely not snowdrops; the plants are now almost a foot tall and I’m guessing these are from Jacob’s Ladder seeds I sowed last spring.)
• Iris histrioides ‘Katherine’s Gold’ (I had a dozen extra reticulated iris bulbs so I stuck them into two pots; so far I’ve not seen any signs of life; I hope they emerge because they would be a beautiful indoor flower.)
• Salvia pratensis ‘Ballerina Pink’ (A hybrid meadow sage from Walters Gardens; I’m not sure why it didn’t get planted last summer.)
• French Tarragon (I am confused on how to treat the garden’s lone French Tarragon. I have read that French Tarragon is a tender perennial that would not survive an Iowa winter, and so I’ve kept our tarragon in a pot and brought it into the greenhouse each fall; in the fall of 2019 I never got it dug up, but in the spring it re-emerged, demonstrating it could survive at least one Iowa winter. In November I did dig up the pot and brought it into the greenhouse, but now I’ve read on several websites that French Tarragon is hardy even in a Zone 4 garden; I’ve also read that they do much better when they are not grown in a pot, so this spring I will take the tarragon out of the pot, give it a permanent home in the herb garden, and see how well it enjoys its new freedom.) ~Bob
Monday Afternoon Garden Report: 18 January 2021
My Swiss Army wristwatch says it’s 3:40 pm,
but the sundial in the middle of the garden
quietly suggests it’s twenty minutes earlier.
Perhaps less accurate, but in the garden I find
the sundial’s ancient technology more appealing.
In the gazebo, the copper-plated thermometer believes
it’s 34 Fahrenheit, a temperature confirmed
by the slow drip of melting snow
from the gazebo’s sun-facing roof.
In front of the gazebo’s open porch
lies a cold Sahara of undulating snow
that has been swept clean by a western wind.
When I look at the crab apple’s barren branches,
there's almost no movement, just a slight shivering,
all its fungus-ridden leaves buried under the snow,
all its fruit devoured by squirrels or juncos
or perhaps a transient flock of cedar waxwings
passing through this urban neighborhood.
The gazebo has its own sundial flower bed,
but the hour divisions have been obliterated
by the snow and a mass of broken
Verbena bonariensis and their brown seedheads.
Other plants in this white desert remain stoically erect,
the hydrangea, the hibiscus, the shrubby potentilla,
the lean, hollow stems of the Joe-Pye weed.
On the other side of the garden I notice
the dogwood’s red twigs, framed
by the rusty curves of Cara’s “Trinity” sculpture,
which in turn is framed by the dark green yews
topped by a few islands of snow.
I look west and face the sun, which
has dropped below the apple tree’s lowest limb
and now appears inches above the roof
of the Alumni House. The shadows continue to slip
across the garden, the octagonal fountain
now captured by their surreptitious advance.
The garden is quiet, no birds fussing,
no blaring radios or shouting voices
or ambulance sirens–only the hum
of traffic on First Avenue and the
low-pitched whisper of the wind chimes.
Walking back to the garden’s unlocked gate,
I pass the sundial, now in the shadows,
its work finished for this day. . . as is mine.
~Bob
January 2 photo of the flowering crab, gazebo, Little Free Library, NE park bench, and "Ringo" metal sphere.
My Swiss Army wristwatch says it’s 3:40 pm,
but the sundial in the middle of the garden
quietly suggests it’s twenty minutes earlier.
Perhaps less accurate, but in the garden I find
the sundial’s ancient technology more appealing.
In the gazebo, the copper-plated thermometer believes
it’s 34 Fahrenheit, a temperature confirmed
by the slow drip of melting snow
from the gazebo’s sun-facing roof.
In front of the gazebo’s open porch
lies a cold Sahara of undulating snow
that has been swept clean by a western wind.
When I look at the crab apple’s barren branches,
there's almost no movement, just a slight shivering,
all its fungus-ridden leaves buried under the snow,
all its fruit devoured by squirrels or juncos
or perhaps a transient flock of cedar waxwings
passing through this urban neighborhood.
The gazebo has its own sundial flower bed,
but the hour divisions have been obliterated
by the snow and a mass of broken
Verbena bonariensis and their brown seedheads.
Other plants in this white desert remain stoically erect,
the hydrangea, the hibiscus, the shrubby potentilla,
the lean, hollow stems of the Joe-Pye weed.
On the other side of the garden I notice
the dogwood’s red twigs, framed
by the rusty curves of Cara’s “Trinity” sculpture,
which in turn is framed by the dark green yews
topped by a few islands of snow.
I look west and face the sun, which
has dropped below the apple tree’s lowest limb
and now appears inches above the roof
of the Alumni House. The shadows continue to slip
across the garden, the octagonal fountain
now captured by their surreptitious advance.
The garden is quiet, no birds fussing,
no blaring radios or shouting voices
or ambulance sirens–only the hum
of traffic on First Avenue and the
low-pitched whisper of the wind chimes.
Walking back to the garden’s unlocked gate,
I pass the sundial, now in the shadows,
its work finished for this day. . . as is mine.
~Bob
January 2 photo of the flowering crab, gazebo, Little Free Library, NE park bench, and "Ringo" metal sphere.
Monday Morning Garden Report: 4 January 2021
WHEN I WAS FIVE OR SIX YEARS OLD, my favorite book in my modest collection of Little Golden Books portrayed a family whose home was only accessible by a long drive through a forest. I don’t recall the name of the book or the story’s plot, but I have never forgotten how much I wanted to live in a similarly secluded world, a private paradise surrounded by trees.
This morning, walking into the Alumni House Garden, I felt a similar, child-like thrill of discovery, as if I were entering a pristine space only available to a chosen few. While the garden’s walls are low enough that I can see the neighborhood’s houses and businesses, the garden’s fresh winter scene felt so perfect, a frozen Eden governed by its own magical rules. Of course, gardens are always dependent on creating illusions. There really is not much separation between the garden and the not-garden, inevitably sharing the same air, the same weather, the same sounds, the same wildlife, even many of the same plants. But for a few moments I felt I had returned to a children’s book I loved 70 years ago, and who would not desire such an illusion to last for a few minutes.
Over the weekend, I had shoveled a path from the garden shed, through the SW gate, around to the patio’s steps, and then across the patio to the Alumni House. The path made it easier for me to obtain several jugs of water from a faucet in the janitor’s closet, water I then used for irrigating several dozen plants in the greenhouse. Once those chores were done, I returned to the garden with my Canon camera, intent on photographing the garden after the recent snowfall and a frozen fog’s rime covering the garden in a frosted veneer. Rime typically disappears within hours after being formed, but the weather conditions this weekend were ideal for its survival. The recurrent morning fogs produced additional rime crystals, transforming the garden into an exquisite landscape.
My first photo was of the flowering crab in the flower bed next to the patio’s handicap accessibility ramp. The tree had been transformed into this 20' tall crystalline sculpture. The tree’s icy armor appeared cold and hard and impregnable. After several photos of the apple tree, I turned my attention to a colony of tall stonecrop next to the large Tom Nelson mobile. I love the stonecrop's rusty brown seedheads and their resilient ability to remain erect, regardless of the intensity of the snow and ice.
The remainder of my report is conveyed by five photos while I was standing in front of the Alumni House patio at dusk. I had not shoveled any of the walkways going into the garden, not wanting to disturb the clean uniformity imposed by the snow and ice. In some ways I felt like Coe’s English-style garden had been transformed into a French garden. English gardens invite visitors to enter into the space, to walk around and engage on an intimate basis with different flower beds, each with unique combinations of plants and forms and textures. In contrast the classic French garden is designed to be appreciated by the visitor remaining outside the garden, finding a location where you can best view the beauty of the garden’s design and symmetries. Today, I had no desire to break through that invisible snow globe that separated me from the garden. I did not want anything to shatter those smooth surfaces. The photos came out darker and bluer than the scenes I was shooting, but I decided not to amend the colors or exposures. The quiet, subdued images suggest how I felt while standing in the cold, using the camera’s zoom adjustments to move closer to various locations without ever needing to step any further into the garden. ~Bob
WHEN I WAS FIVE OR SIX YEARS OLD, my favorite book in my modest collection of Little Golden Books portrayed a family whose home was only accessible by a long drive through a forest. I don’t recall the name of the book or the story’s plot, but I have never forgotten how much I wanted to live in a similarly secluded world, a private paradise surrounded by trees.
This morning, walking into the Alumni House Garden, I felt a similar, child-like thrill of discovery, as if I were entering a pristine space only available to a chosen few. While the garden’s walls are low enough that I can see the neighborhood’s houses and businesses, the garden’s fresh winter scene felt so perfect, a frozen Eden governed by its own magical rules. Of course, gardens are always dependent on creating illusions. There really is not much separation between the garden and the not-garden, inevitably sharing the same air, the same weather, the same sounds, the same wildlife, even many of the same plants. But for a few moments I felt I had returned to a children’s book I loved 70 years ago, and who would not desire such an illusion to last for a few minutes.
Over the weekend, I had shoveled a path from the garden shed, through the SW gate, around to the patio’s steps, and then across the patio to the Alumni House. The path made it easier for me to obtain several jugs of water from a faucet in the janitor’s closet, water I then used for irrigating several dozen plants in the greenhouse. Once those chores were done, I returned to the garden with my Canon camera, intent on photographing the garden after the recent snowfall and a frozen fog’s rime covering the garden in a frosted veneer. Rime typically disappears within hours after being formed, but the weather conditions this weekend were ideal for its survival. The recurrent morning fogs produced additional rime crystals, transforming the garden into an exquisite landscape.
My first photo was of the flowering crab in the flower bed next to the patio’s handicap accessibility ramp. The tree had been transformed into this 20' tall crystalline sculpture. The tree’s icy armor appeared cold and hard and impregnable. After several photos of the apple tree, I turned my attention to a colony of tall stonecrop next to the large Tom Nelson mobile. I love the stonecrop's rusty brown seedheads and their resilient ability to remain erect, regardless of the intensity of the snow and ice.
The remainder of my report is conveyed by five photos while I was standing in front of the Alumni House patio at dusk. I had not shoveled any of the walkways going into the garden, not wanting to disturb the clean uniformity imposed by the snow and ice. In some ways I felt like Coe’s English-style garden had been transformed into a French garden. English gardens invite visitors to enter into the space, to walk around and engage on an intimate basis with different flower beds, each with unique combinations of plants and forms and textures. In contrast the classic French garden is designed to be appreciated by the visitor remaining outside the garden, finding a location where you can best view the beauty of the garden’s design and symmetries. Today, I had no desire to break through that invisible snow globe that separated me from the garden. I did not want anything to shatter those smooth surfaces. The photos came out darker and bluer than the scenes I was shooting, but I decided not to amend the colors or exposures. The quiet, subdued images suggest how I felt while standing in the cold, using the camera’s zoom adjustments to move closer to various locations without ever needing to step any further into the garden. ~Bob