I've been so busy this spring (and now summer) with working in my three gardens that I've not had much time for writing about my gardening experiences and observations. I had originally intended this blog to be an annotated census of the native plants and flowers in the Alumni House Garden, but as I was working on that project and reading/thinking about indigenous flora--and the multiple roles those plants fulfill in an English-style flower garden in Iowa--I realized that I was not ready to post my thoughts on the subject. I'll return to the project this winter, when I should have more hours in the day for doing a more thorough reading and reflecting on this issue of native plants in a formal flower garden. In the meantime, I do have an assortment of short pieces--the sallies--that I've composed in the past month, and perhaps I can manage to get them revised, edited, and posted in the not-too-distant future (while also working on several other incomplete blog posts waiting for my attention). ~Bob
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The last weekend in May, my wife and I drove to my hometown in Kansas and planted six small plains coreopsis at my parents' grave site in Gracelawn cemetery. I'm trying to compose a short essay about the experience. If I ever produce a decent draft I will post it to this garden blog. ~Bob
Ten miles, fifteen minutes, one way: the distance and time driving my ‘88 Chevy S-10 pickup from home to the vegetable garden. Round trip is twenty miles, thirty minutes, one gallon of unleaded regular without ethanol. The trips begin in late February and usually end the first week in December–though in ‘21 the weather was so pleasant I was still doing garden work after Christmas. No precise records, but probably 5-6 trips per week, perhaps averaging 25 monthly round trips from March to November, perhaps 200 trips per year, perhaps 200 gallons of gas. That’s $800 per year, not counting wear and tear on an old vehicle. Gardening does not appear to be motivated by the desire to save money. On the other hand, in our basement are hundreds of jars of tomatoes, tomato juice, tomato soup, spaghetti sauce, picked beets, cucumber relish, and in the chest freezer bags of frozen zucchini, peas, beans, peppers, raspberries, strawberries, gooseberries. Under a table in the corner of the basement are boxes of potatoes, sweet potatoes, garlic, winter squash, and pumpkins. It’s not likely a day goes by when we don’t eat something from the garden, whether it be raspberries mixed with the yogurt for breakfast or squash soup for lunch or baked potatoes for supper. Maybe, if we kept accurate records, we might break even, but who knows? The motivation to have a vegetable garden is driven by factors other than financial.
The vegetable garden is located on a small farm near Wickiup Hill Learning Center, not far from Toddville. The farm was once a horse farm but the couple no longer own any horses. The garden is an allotment arrangement. I am free to plant whatever veggies I desire. The owners are free to harvest whatever they might want. They don’t take much. They harvest an occasional tomato or strawberry, but in most instances the only vegetables or berries they eat are the ones I give them. For me, it’s a sweet deal. I have this marvelous garden plot, and I don't pay a cent in property tax. This is a large garden. I think of it as a half-acre, though it is not quite that large. Half of my garden is surrounded by a fence, the other unfenced half (which I garden jointly with another gentleman) is reserved for produce (e.g., potatoes, pumpkins, winter squash, watermelons) rarely bothered by deer. There will always be some damage from wildlife. In addition to deer, we often have to deal with rabbits, coons, rodents, Colorado potato beetles, squash borers, etc, but most years we can absorb the damage and still come out ahead. In January nearly all my gardening is done in doors, sitting in a comfortable chair, surrounded by garden catalogs: Baker Creek, Johnny’s Seeds, Territorial, High Mowing, Seeds ‘n Such, Totally Tomatoes, Annie’s Heirlooms, Victory Seeds, John Scheepers, Southern Exposure Seed Exchange, Botanical Interests, Seeds of Italy, Pinetree Garden Seeds. In addition to old favorites, each year I experiment with new varieties or even new vegetables. Celeriac, ground cherries, tomatillos, & blackeye peas are a few I’ve tried for the first time in the last four years. What follows is a commentary on vegetables from the summer of 2022, noting both notable failures and occasional successes. [I hope that some time this summer the commentary on ten vegetables will be posted as a pdf to this introduction. I just need a couple rainy days when it's too wet to work in the garden. When it comes to the choice between gardening and writing about gardening, the former usually prevails. ~Bob] Annual Annotated Bibliography of Garden Books for 2022
This February 2023 blog post is an annotated bibliography of the 24 garden books I’ve read in the last twelve months. An alphabetized list is followed by my annotations. Most of the books focus on gardening; however, the two most memorable books I read this past year–Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass and Richard Powers’ The Overstory–address a host of issues ranging far beyond flower and vegetable gardens. But while reading them, I frequently found myself reflecting on my understanding of gardens and their potential roles in my life. Thus my decision to label both as “garden books.” Because of the length of the bibliography, the complete text is available as a PDF. ~Bob Brown, Jane. Eminent Gardeners: Some People of Influence and Their Gardens, 1880-1980 (Viking, 1990). Clayton-Payne, Andrew and Brent Elliott. Victorian Flower Gardens (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1988). Gaydos, Ellyn. Pig Years ( Knopf, 2022; read Kindle edition). Goodman, Richard. French Dirt: The Story of a Garden in the South of France (Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2002). Goulson, Dave. The Garden Jungle (Jonathan Cape, 2019). Kimmerer, Robin Wall. Braiding Sweetgrass (Milkweed Editions, 2013). Kingsbury, Noël. Seedheads in the Garden (Timber Press, 2006). Landsberg, Sylvia. The Medieval Garden (Thames and Hudson, N.D.) Laws, Bill. Artists’ Gardens (Trafalgar Square Publishing, 1999). Lees-Milne, Alvilde and Rosemary Verey, editors. The Englishwoman’s Garden (Chatto & Windus, 1983) and The New Englishwoman’s Garden (Salem House Publishers, 1988) Norris, Kelly D. New Naturalism: Designing and Planting a Resilient, Ecologically Vibrant Home Garden (Cool Springs Press, 2021). Phillips, Roger & Martyn Rix. Vegetables (Macmillan Reference Books, 1995). Potter, Jennifer. Strange Blooms: The Curious Lives and Adventures of the John Tradescants (Atlantic Books, 2007). Powers, Richard. The Overstory (W. W. Norton, 2018). Raver, Anne. Deep in the Green: An Exploration of Country Pleasures (Knopf, 1996; read on Kindle). Rebanks, James. Pastoral Song: A Farmer’s Journey (Custom House, 2021; read on Kindle). Richards, Gareth. Weeds: The Beauty and Uses of 50 Vagabond Plants (Welbeck, 2021; an RHS publication). Rose, Stephanie. The Regenerative Garden: 80 Practical Projects for Creating a Self-sustaining Garden Ecosystem (Cool Spring Press, 2022; read on Kindle) Rushing, Felder. Maverick Gardeners: Dr. Dirt and Other Determined Independent Gardeners (University Press of Mississippi, 2021), Stein, Sara B. My Weeds: A Gardener’s Botany (Harper & Row, 1988). Von Arnim, Elizabeth. Elizabeth and Her German Garden (Virago, 2000; originally published in 1898). Wareham, Anne. The Deckchair Gardener: An Improper Gardening Manual (Michael O’Mara, 2017; read on Kindle) Wright, Richardson. The Gardener’s Bed-Book (Modern Library, 2003; originally published in 1929) The Annotations • Brown, Jane. Eminent Gardeners: Some People of Influence and Their Gardens, 1880-1980. I did not start reading this book with the open mind it deserved. I had just finished reading two volumes describing 50 British gardens and their owners, nearly all gardens associated with the British upper-crust. With dozens of unread garden books waiting for me, I should have turned to something quite different (such as an informative text on how to raise vegetables in a Midwest garden), but this book arrived in the mail, I had for several years wanted to read one of Jane Brown’s books, and so I dived in. In some ways the subtitle tells one a lot about this book because Brown spends a lot of space talking about “people of influence.” During this 100-year period there seems to have been a circle of prominent people socially and culturally interconnected, and thus Brown has many passages explaining who knew whom. We find multiple references to the Astors, the Balfours, the Cloughs, the Fairhavens, the Wolseleys, the Bloomsbury set, John Singer Sargent and Henry James, Vita Sackville-West and Professor Henry Sedgwick, etc. Despite my periodic yearning to move beyond all these “people of influence,” this book offers insightful portraits of several influential gardeners and their gardens. For example, there is a marvelous chapter on Gertrude Jekyll’s garden at Munstead Wood, discussing how the interior of her home, designed by Edward Luytens, was integrated and connected with the surrounding garden. In contrast to her discussion of Gertrude Jekyll, certainly one of the most famous and influential of British gardeners, most of the book focuses on individuals who were people of influence during their lifetime but have been subsequently forgotten: –Frances Wolseley: daughter of a famous soldier who managed to create a ground-breaking career as a gardener and an educator of women gardeners, dedicated to establishing gardening as an acceptable professional career for young women. –Norah Lindsay: the forgotten figure most responsible for the success of the American Lawrence Johnston’s Hidcote Manor Garden, one of the 20th-century’s most notable gardens; Brown surmises that Lindsay has never received the recognition she deserves because she never wrote about her work at Hidcote. –Anne Jemima Clough and Eleanor Sidgwick: two women responsible for creating the garden at Newnham College for women at Cambridge; Brown introduces their accomplishment by noting that “most schools and colleges come second only to religious foundations in the insensitivity they inflict on their gardens.” Painful to read–though it is some compensation knowing that Brown wrote this book before the creation of Coe’s Alumni House Garden. –Lady Fairhaven and her sons: beginning in the early 1930s they created a spacious garden at Anglesey Abbey near Cambridge; Brown is highly critical of many aspects of this garden (“full of frustrations of sequences that don’t follow on, of surprises like damp squibs and attempts at asymmetry that come out as lopsidedness”), but she also introduces it as “the grandest garden made in England this century.” –Christoher Tannard: a fascinating figure who espoused a set of principles for designing gardens that complemented modernistic architecture, an effort that according to Brown has been almost completely ignored. An issue Brown raises on numerous occasions is the importance of designing gardens which fit with the architecture. One reason for her admiration of the Newnham College garden is how its layout and choice of plants fit so perfectly with the design and principles of the institution. In her final chapter she notes that “a garden is more than its design laid out on paper and its collection of plants in a list. A garden is an experience, a moving picture, or a series of pictures through which one moves, and as Sir Frederick Gibberd said, ‘if you step into the picture it dissolves, and other pictures appear.’” That passage alone was worth the price of admission into a book that proved to be more insightful and thought-provoking than I had expected. 2022 Annotated Bibliography of Garden Books This Winter 2023 Garden Kalendar is composed of edited excerpts from my daily, hand-written garden journal entries from January 1 to March 31, 2022--accompanied by occasional commentaries on those passages. The journal records my work in four gardens:
• The Alumni House Garden at Coe; • A half-acre vegetable garden on a small farm adjacent to the Wickiup Hill Outdoor Learning Center near Toddville (a garden typically identified as the Wickiup garden); • The gardens and landscape at Buffalo United Methodist Church, a small church not far from Mount Mercy College; • The gardens at my home on Elmhurst Drive in Cedar Rapids. This Kalendar constitutes about 50% of my journal entries in the first quarter of 2022. A map of the Alumni House Garden map is posted on the website’s “map” page; here are links to simple maps of the Wickiup vegetable garden and the back yard garden on Elmhurst Drive. As for the italicized quotations inserted between journal entries, they come from Tony Lord’s Best Borders (Penguin, 1994), an excellent garden book I read in the winter of 2022. Because of the length of this document, the complete Winter 2023 Kalendar is posted as a pdf. ~Bob Why does a picture of plants grouped together have so much more beauty than the individuals plants alone? Is it the interplay of colors or shapes, the bold contrast of foliage textures, or the way the plants are lit by the sun? The answers to such questions are the key to inspired gardening. ~Tony Lord 2 January 2022. The first entry of the new year and everything feels out of sync. I’m writing this entry in the morning in my Garden Studio, not late at night in the sun room. Even more disconcerting, I’m writing with a gel ballpoint, not my preferred Lamy fountain pen. I just finished shoveling a path from the house to the Garden Studio through 6"+ snow. My fingers are too cold to type–in fact, my right hand is struggling to hold on to this pen. Yesterday it snowed all day, accompanied by a vigorous wind, so the snow is quite deep in some locations. Yesterday’s temp hovered around 10F, but last night it dropped well below zero, and my Garden Studio thermometer informs me it’s now -2F, but there’s enough breeze out of the west to keep Leon’s whiligig spinning and the cowbell in the stumpery clanging. Fortunately the electricity is working and the Studio was a pleasant 63F when I arrived. The temp is now 65F, and my fingers are becoming more functional. It’s time to turn on the computer. 5 January. This week I’ve started a new project, developing a comprehensive system for organizing the garden photos. I’ll continue to organize them by month, but I’ve now started a second arrangement grouping them by subject. One goal is to create a comprehensive photographic representation of every flower, shrub, and tree species in the Alum Garden and put that information on the website. Perhaps it will be an alphabetical catalog of plants with a brief slideshow for each species, showing photos at different times of the year and in different years. I’m also sorting photos for veggies & herbs, sculpture and furniture, greenhouse and tools, shrubs and trees, grasses, weeds, insects, animals, and views of specific beds. This photo catalog could provide website visitors a more comprehensive view of the garden than what’s currently available. [I worked on this project in the month of January, going through about half of my garden photo collection. Once spring gardening weather arrived in late February, I set the project aside. I hope to make sufficient progress in the winter of 2023 so a substantial portion of this material can be posted to the website.] 11 January. Warmer today, temp into the upper 30s, sunshine, but I did no outdoor garden work. In the morning I sorted and edited photos from November and December of 2019, identifying photos that I can use for the comprehensive garden survey. It’s a slow process, looking at hundreds of photos, many virtual duplicates, such as my many, repetitious photos of tall stonecrop seedheads. Fortunately, there are photos that capture a new detail or convey a fresh perspective. I was particularly pleased with the December 2019 photos of seedheads, dried leaves, and flowers, including a wonderful series of closeups of foliage on a Lamb’s Ear. Today I spent over six hours in the garden studio. I drafted a new Monday Morning Garden Report (MMGR) for the end of December and edited the Fall and Summer Kalendars. The Fall entry should be ready for posting. Even if it’s not done, it’s time to call it “done.” The Summer Kalendar will need more work, but the basic text is done. It’s now time to focus on the spring/summer seed orders. 14 January. Snow began this morning after sunrise and it’s still coming, though tapering off. It’s been windy so it’s hard to estimate the total snowfall but probably 6-7". Temp in the 20s but it will drop tonight, approaching zero. Another polar express. This morning my first task was going to the church and posting four new messages on the church’s electronic sign, the first time I’ve done it without A’s assistance. Somehow it went smoothly, no hiccups. I was thrilled. I then walked around the church property, trying to estimate the number and location of trees we should plant this spring. I came up with the following possibilities: • Two large trees along 30th street between the burgundy maple and the property line. • One large tree southwest of the shed. • One large tree between the shed and the church, replacing the lone, emasculated tree that survived the derecho. • Two large trees along the north fence. • 4-5 small trees (probably evergreens) in the corner of the property behind the wind chimes. • A line of 4-5 small trees along the north property line (perhaps cherry or serviceberry) and a comparable line on the south side along the fence of the old parsonage. Graham Thomas’s color theory of “the omission rather than the inclusion”; he explains, “One border has got no pinks, mauves, or purples, the other has got no oranges, reds or yellows, and that, I think, is the way to do gardens.” PDF of Garden Kalendar: Winter 2023 Grasses and Seedheads, Snow and Wind:
Five Cold Months in a Midwest Flower Garden DURING MY FOUR DECADES living in Iowa, I believe this is the first time we have reached All Saints Day and several tender flowers are still in bloom. We are headed for a serious freeze this evening, but today the large yellow blooms on the Kevin Floodlight dahlia and the gently fragrant white blooms on the peacock orchids (Gladiolus acidanthera) remain fresh and unsullied. The pleasure of their morning cheer was soon sullied, however, when I walked into the gazebo 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 a 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 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. ON A LIMESTONE BLOCK at the back of the rock garden, someone last night left behind 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. After disposing of the scat, 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. Although my bird species identification skills are woefully inadequate, I suspect one group of feeders was several house finches. Many years years ago, a friend (who was an 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 most of what my friend told me on our morning stroll has been forgotten, but his introduction to the house finch has stayed with me. LATE 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 pursuit. IN NOVEMBER, the ornamental grasses are the key species in many of the perennial beds. I’m 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 have grown 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 Northwind will equal the height of the older switch grass. DESPITE MY AFFECTIONS for the ornamental grasses, my eyes inevitably gravitate to the plants that still have a few fresh-looking flowers: the dahlias and 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. 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 GARDEN’S SWITCH GRASS CULTIVARS may be sterile, the northern sea oats enjoy rampant fecundity 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 a new colony of sea oats need to be removed from under the pergola. As they have migrated north, they have buried a row of astilbe in the rain garden. The most pragmatic 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 group of astilbe 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 become dry and shriveled. They need to be dug up, the soil enriched with fresh compost and perhaps some chicken grit, and replanted. A job for next spring. THIS MORNING 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 remain behind, 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 nearest the patio entrance were covered with a lovely blend of red and brownish-orange leaves. Today they are barren. IN LATE FALL my attention is frequently attracted to plants in the aster/sunflower family. The garden now has hundreds of coneflower seedheads, 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. The New England and aromatic aster seedheads are smaller than the coneflowers, the white fuzzballs more delicate-looking. 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 a 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 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 a stack of seed clusters. Nevertheless, I take several photos of the turtlehead seed spike and the orange-brown foliage, trusting the photos will help me appreciate something I’m missing with the naked eye. SCATTERED THROUGH THE GARDEN are plants that depend on their foliage for the gardener’s protection and good-will. In this group are the Helene von Stein lambs ears, 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 in the fall suggest a miniature forest of red maple leaves), and the snow-in-summer (their silver-tinted leaves relishing the cold weather). 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. LAST WEEK we had our first spring flower--a single snowdrop, three months ahead of schedule. Perhaps confused by the 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’S 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 start blooming in the middle of the spring and are still in bloom six months later. Their primary drawback is their exuberant growth, which necessitates they be cut back several times a year. The pruning task, however, is quite pleasant--an enticing fragrance surrounding me as I gather up the old stems and leaves. EACH FALL I’m always surprised at how much fresh, spring-like foliage I encounter. Just in a single flower bed I found over two dozen plants entering the winter months with new leaves ready for the spring: • Catmint • Tall Stonecrop (small buds of fresh foliage at the base of each plant; I leave 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 disappearing in the summer, the green leaves re-emerge in the fall; I should plant more grape hyacinths to mark where other spring bulbs are planted.) • Betony (two Stachys macrantha planted five years ago; each betony has patiently expanded its width without requiring any grooming or attention; in the same genus as lamb’s ear, their foliage and flowers look so different but they share a quiet toughness.) • Love-in-a-Mist (scores of Nigela damescena seedlings covering the flower bed; because these annual self-seeders are so thick, I don’t cover this area with the wood mulch.) • Allium (most 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 bed has a plethora 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 daylilies have generated fresh growth; when earlier this month I removed old foliage from a Stella d’oro, I found two flower buds.) • Barren Strawberries ( Waldsteinia fragarioides, a thick, hardy ground cover that remains green throughout the year.) • Cushion Spurge (one annual 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 (all produce summer foliage that will often survive through the winter.) • New England Asters, Goldenrod, Black-Eyed Susans (these members of the aster/sunflower family produce clusters of green leaves at their base in preparation for the spring.) • Sorrel, Creeping Charlie, Queen Anne’s Lace, Dandelion (despite their charms, these plants that I treat as weeds. ) • Daffodils and Summer Snowflakes (hundreds of green shoots of daffodils and Leucojum aestivum have sent up their green periscopes, checking out the situation.) THIS MORNING at 8:00 a.m., the temperature was 8F and, as I expected, the garden lock was frozen. To warm up the lock, I turned on my tea kettle, heated a cup of water, and poured the hot water over the lock. Once I had the lock opened, I put the lock in the greenhouse so it would dry out, and then began my walk around the garden. Although the surface of the snow suggested I was probably the first human to visit the garden this month, the rabbit and squirrel tracks (and rabbit turds) provided ample evidence that various animals had been utilizing the garden. During the fall I had occasionally seen a rabbit in the garden, but I recently discovered a pair, which would suggest they have plans to use the garden for their home. I don’t mind an occasional rabbit, but the rabbits can do some serious damage to the tulips and other emerging plants in the spring. If they are still around in February, I may set up the live trap and see if I can deposit them on the other side of the Cedar River. . . . The biggest surprise of the day was that inside the gazebo was a Coe College banner that had blown off a pole outside the garden. The banner was spread out across the entrance to the gazebo, informing me that Coe had been founded in 1851. WHEN I WAS 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 my dream had been partially fulfilled, 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 magic. Of course, gardens are always dependent on creating illusions. There is never 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 used for the plants in the greenhouse. Once my irrigating 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 that was 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. The flowering crab next to the patio’s handicap accessibility ramp was transformed into this 20' tall crystalline sculpture. The tree’s icy armor appeared hard and impregnable. I REFRAINED from shoveling any of the walkways going into the garden, not wanting to disturb the clean uniformity imposed by the recent snowfalls. I thought the snow had transformed Coe’s English-style garden into a French garden. English gardens invite visitors to enter into the space, to engage on an intimate basis with different flower beds, each full of unique combinations of plants and textures. In contrast the classic French garden is designed to be appreciated by 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 transient snow globe that separated me from the garden. I did not want anything to shatter those smooth surfaces. My 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. 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 benches while eating their noon meal. As for the early spring bulbs, the blossoms of the yellow crocus, winter aconites, and snow drops 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 warmer weather. AS I WALKED TOWARD 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 iris in the large sun dial’s flower bed in front of the gazebo. The blooms of these miniature 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. 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, but when I look at the crab apple’s barren branches, there’s almost no movement, just a slight shivering, 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 are hidden 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. Except for the hum of traffic on First Avenue, the garden is quiet, no birds fussing, no blaring radios or shouting voices or ambulance sirens–only the irregular percussion 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. FINI This segmented essay is based on passages from Monday Morning Garden Reports posted from November 2021 through March 2022. ~Bob My wife and I just returned from an eight-day cruise on the Seine, traveling from Paris to the beaches of Normandy and back to Paris. During the trip, we visited a variety of gardens, some quite famous (such as the Jardin des Tuileries in Paris), others not so well known (a tiny plot near the Chateau Gaillard in Normandy). Since we were on a Viking river cruise with a pre-determined daily schedule, all these garden photos were taken while we were walking toward another destination and listening to a tour guide (consistently engaging and informative) talk about topics other than the flowers and gardens we were passing by. For this trip I carried a small Canon PowerShot SX740, usually set on automatic since I rarely had time to make any adjustments for light, etc. November is probably not the best month for visiting French gardens, but there were some delightful and unexpected surprises. Because many French gardens place a premium on structural design and minimize the role of herbaceous flowers, several gardens looked quite marvelous in their fall colors. I was also surprised how frequently we encountered gardens with hardy bedding plants that had recently been transplanted. What follows are eight slideshows of photographs from different locations we visited. My knowledge of French flowers and shrubs is quite limited--though I was occasionally pleased to discover flowers that we have in the Coe garden. With regard to my photo captions, either I'm offering my best guess concerning the plant's identify or my silence indicates that I have no confidence in my best guess. Here's the order of the eight slideshows. I'm still working on the captions and will update periodically. --Auvers-sur-Oise --Paris Gardens: The Tuileries and Square Rene Viviani --Chateau Gaillard --The Village of LaRoche Guyon --Normandy and the American cemetery at Omaha Beach --The City of Rouen --Viking Herb Gardens and Gardens on the Banks of the Seine River --Palace of Mal Maison ~Bob Auvers-sur-Oise, the home and burial site of Vincent van Gogh During our one-hour bus ride through the countryside, from our docking site on the Seine to the village of Auvers-sur-Oise, we passed through Giverny and for one second could see into Monet's garden. The first photo in this slideshow is of the famous lily pond. The garden is closed during the winter months so there it was not possible for us to stop and walk through the garden. As for the van Gogh sites, we did spend some time in the boarding house where van Gogh was living when he died. The most memorable moments on this day-trip occurred when we were walking to the van Gogh's grave site and visited the cemetery where he and his brother are buried. Gardens in Paris: The Tuilleries and Square Rene Viviani (near Notre Dame) The Square René Viviani, at the edge of the Latin Quarter, provides a marvelous view of Notre Dame Cathedral. Just a few feet outside the park’s entrance is the English-language bookshop, Shakespeare and Company, named after Sylvia Beach's legendary bookshop that was closed when Germany occupied Paris in 1941. Inside the square is an odd-looking sculpture honoring St. Julien the Hospitaller (surrounded by colorful potted mums) and a False Acacia, Robinia pseudoacacia, believed to be the oldest tree in Paris. The tree was planted by its namesake, Jean Robin, France’s pre-eminent gardener in the early 17th century. Although badly damaged during World War I, this locust continues to bloom each year. Our visit to the Tuilleries was very brief. It was a 45-minute walk from our ship to the garden, and by the time we arrived it was beginning to get dark. We quickly walked around one corner of the park, primarily focusing on a large Jeff Koons sculpture of abstract tulips and the red Peruvian Lilies still in bloom. In a small band stand in the park, a lone musician was periodically playing an instrument that looked like a baritone. After playing a melody for a few seconds, he would stop, pace around the band stand, and then play another short piece. Chateau Gaillard The Village of LaRoche Guyon Normandy and the American cemetery at Omaha Beach Passages from my travel journal: The cemetery at Omaha Beach is quite beautiful. Thousands of white crosses (plus a few Star of David markers) neatly arranged in long, straight rows. At one end of the cemetery is a memorial , which includes a long wall with the names of soldiers whose remains were never recovered. At the memorial our group participated in a short ceremony, which included a recording of the National Anthem & Taps, the laying of a wreath at the Memorial, and a brief speech by a French administrator who works at the cemetery. His speech described two young French soldiers from his home town, St. Lo, who fought and were killed in the American Revolution--a reminder of the long history of close ties between France and America. At the end of the service they asked that all veterans step forward for a group photo. Because this is a group of elderly Americans, a lot of Viet Nam era vets in the group. After the ceremony, we had about 45 minutes to explore the cemetery. MVM and I walked to the chapel in the center of the cemetery. The chapel is quite small, symbolically mixing Christian theology (quotes on the resurrection) and U.S. Patriotism (several flags). At the far end of the cemetery we came upon two large marble (?) statues of female figures, one holding an eagle (I assume symbolizing the U.S.) and the other holding a rooster (France). The grounds around the cemetery are wooded, a mix of trees and understory shrubs, though looking to the west, you could see the Atlantic. Trees I could identify included red twig dogwood, larch, many pine trees (I picked up a small pine cone as a souvenir), a lot of holly, oak trees, willows. Near the memorial were carefully spaced and neatly trimmed trees, perhaps magnolias. Flowers, Trees, and Gardens in the City of Rouen Herb Garden on Viking Cruise Ship and Gardens/Landscape on Banks of the River Seine Palace of Mal Maison Passages from Trip Journal Our final excursion of this trip was to Josephine's home at Mal Maison. The house is well-preserved and the rooms are full of period furnishings, quite tastefully arranged--though a few rooms were overstuffed with chairs. One room had the David painting of Napoleon on a rearing horse, crossing the Alps, following Hannibal's route. I did notice that David's signature was on the horse's bridle. It's a large painting, quite powerful. Another room had a huge billiards table,perhaps 1/3 longer than a conventional table. We also walked through two bedrooms, a marvelous library, a room with a secret compartment in the parquet floor, a dining room table with silverware facing down so no one can see the coat of arms. Although we had an excellent tour guide, once the house tour was over, we only had twenty minutes to tour the gardens. At the back of the palace was a meadow, looking rather wild and unkempt, the grass not recently mowed. Many large plane trees and a pond with black swans, which date back to Josephine and her large menagerie. There is a moat around the back of the palace, and at the top of the moat was a flower bed of bedding plants, many still in bloom, though well past their prime. The original planting had apparently been quite neat and orderly with a repetitive pattern to the planting, but by the end of the season, everything looks rather jumbled. Most impressive were a series of huge nicotiana, well over 6' tall, with many red blooms. Also occurring across the bed were ornamental kale, snapdragons, dahlias (a few looked like Bishops with their dark burgundy foliage), cleomes, a salvia with small red flowers, a short plant with small pink blooms, many small pink zinnias, several gomphrena, castor bean plants with fuzzy red seedheads, several vines (perhaps morning glories but no blooms) supported by tall teepee poles, and several beautiful statice. Just as we were leaving we found a formal flower garden, symmetrically laid out with diagonal walkways converging on a a center. Unfortunately we were already late for returning to our bus so we had no time to explore the garden, but I did take a photo of one flower, a beautiful pink Rosa Galica. As we were leaving the palace, I noticed that we had been walking past a long row of trimmed linden trees. This would be quite a fragrant walk in the late spring "unter den linden" (unfortunately I don't know the French equivalent).
Fall 2022 Garden Kalendar
This Fall 2022 Garden Kalendar is composed of edited excerpts from my daily, hand-written garden journal entries from October 1 to December 31, 2021--accompanied by occasional commentaries on those passages. The journal records my work in four gardens: • The Alumni House Garden at Coe; • A half-acre vegetable garden on a small farm adjacent to the Wickiup Hill Outdoor Learning Center near Toddville (a garden typically identified as the Wickiup garden); • The gardens and landscape at Buffalo United Methodist Church, a small church not far from Mount Mercy College; • The gardens at my home on Elmhurst Drive in Cedar Rapids. Kalendar excerpts have in previous years concentrated on journal entries dealing with the Coe and Wickiup gardens. The residential gardens on Elmhurst Drive, prior to the August 2020 derecho, were minimal-care, perennial shade gardens populated with several hundred hostas. The wind storm, however, profoundly changed that landscape, destroying all our shade trees and inspiring a dramatic redesign of the gardens around the house. In the past two years a substantial portion of my gardening (and writing about my gardening) has focused on these new gardens in our front and back yard. This Kalendar constitutes about 50% of my journal entries in the fourth quarter of 2021. Here are links to simple maps of the back yard garden on Elmhurst Drive and the Wickiup vegetable garden. The Alumni House Garden map is posted on the website’s “map” page. As for the italicized quotations inserted between journal entries, they come from Page Dickey’s A Gardener Reflects on Beginning Again, one of the most enjoyable gardening books I read in 2021. Because of the length of this document, the complete Fall 2022 Kalendar is posted as a pdf. ~Bob I am one of those odd creatures who actually enjoys weeding. I find it utterly absorbing, on my hands and knees stirring the earth, pulling out interlopers, looking at flowers and leaves up close, their patterns, their fragrance, familiarizing myself with their habit and what they like or don’t like. And then, standing up, as I need to do often now, I have the instant gratification of seeing what I’ve accomplished. ~Page Dickey Excerpts from Garden Journal, October-December 2021 1 October. Two nights ago I did my fall bulb order, a bit late. My favorite tulips, Blushing Lady, were sold out, but plenty of tulips and other bulbs were still available. At two websites, I spent about $1,500 on bulbs for Coe, Buffalo, and home. Colorblends Order 1500 Tommies crocus (for Buffalo and Coe landscaping) 200 Spring Loaded Tulips (Coe’s “D” & “J” beds) 100 Sun Disc Daffodils (soft yellow and gold for front yard) 200 Top 40 Daffs (for front yard and Buffalo) 100 Judy Beauty Tulips (multi-colored for back yard) 250 Fortune Daffs (yellow with soft orange, for Buffalo and home) 100 Stop the Car Tulips (purple and orange, for back yard) 25 Morel Daffs (yellow with orange, for front yard) 25 Frosty Snow Daffs (white with yellow, for front yard) 25 Joyce Spirit Daffs (white with orange, front yard) 25 Pipe Major Daffs (yellow with orange, front yard) 50 Tripartite Daffs (pale yellow with yellow, front yard and Coe) 200 Vernal Jewels (undecided) 200 Rainbow Coalition (undecided) 200 Glory of the Snow (Coe, Buffalo, front & back yard) 50 Allium Purple Sensation (Coe & home) 100 White Cubed Tulips (Coe & Buffalo) Van Engelen Order 200 Allium Moly Jeannines (Coe & back yard at home) 100 Eranthis Hyemalis (Coe & back yard) 15 Fritillaria Imperialis (Coe, “D” & “J” beds) 50 Narcissus Actaea Daffs (front yard) 50 Narcissus Gigantic Star (Coe) 50 Narcissus Lemon Beauty (Front yard) Almost 4,000 bulbs, a lot to plant in the next 4-6 weeks; my two student assistants can help plant the Tommies at Coe. [All the bulbs got planted and in most instances they ended up where I intended. A few proved very successful. All the tulips were winners, particularly the White Cubed and Spring Loaded Tulips at Coe--a nice sequence of blooms with dynamic colors. Among the daffodils, the Gigantic Star were very late to emerge, but they produced large, long-lasting blooms; very impressive. As for disappointments, many of the Tommies never emerged, perhaps because of squirrels. Only a few Sun Disc daffodils survived the winter, and as usual a relatively small number of the Eranthis hyemalis produced any flowers–but I’ll keep experimenting, trying out new locations, hoping I find locations where they will thrive.] As for gardening today, it was all at Coe, mostly the garden’s east end. I began the day by moving the black metal privacy screen from the “H” bed to the walkways between the “A” beds. My current plan is to place the screen in front of the apartment wall, breaking up that sterile background. But before I can put the screen in place, I need to move the Northwind (or is it “North Wind”?) switch grass that I planted in the “A2" bed a couple of weeks ago. I woke up this morning, convinced the grass will not receive enough direct sun in the bed next to the old student apartments. The best option is to move those four grass clumps to the “H” bed, where I just ripped out the goldenrod and dogwood. Today I turned over the soil in the “H” bed and removed all the white bindweed roots I could find. Tomorrow morning I’ll move the grass to this new location–and try to find an appropriate shade-loving shrub for the back of the “A2" bed. There is a Joe Pye weed volunteer and a redbud in that area; both are potential candidates for saving. 2 October. Major event today was driving to Kalona to the bakery, where we bought a half-dozen donuts, several bags of granola, and a wind chimes for the Buffalo Labyrinth. After listening to all the larger chimes, we settled on a green Corinthian Bells, $500 model, with beautiful bass tones. This evening, after our return from Kalona, I took three boxes of veggies for distribution at the church tomorrow and mowed the Labyrinth path, the first time it had been mowed since the August 5 dedication. I should not have been surprised at how overgrown the path had become. It was occasionally hard to follow the original path. The difficulties were exacerbated by the taller grasses lying on the ground, covering the pathway. Another issue is that the Labyrinth has many large dandelions and thistles, free to grow over-sized since they are no longer being mowed every week. It’s going to be a real challenge digging out those bullies. Earlier in the day at Coe, I moved the Northwind switch grass from the back of the “A2" bed to an area in front of the gazebo in the “H” bed. I was pleased to see the grasses all had fresh root growth. This new site will give them more sun, and they’ll add an appealing complement to the nearby miscanthus. 3 October. All gardening today was at Coe. In the morning I worked in the “G” bed, removing gooseneck, horsetail, grass, and vetch along the rain garden’s north channel. Slow going. Many roots creating a dense web below the soil. While digging out the roots, I’m trying to save the random daffodil bulbs I encounter. I still have a lot of vetch to remove from the west end of the channel. Removing the river oats from the east end will be another challenge. In the afternoon I switched to the front of the “D” bed. I removed goldenrod and sorrel, dug out several wild milkweeds growing among the stonecrop, and pulled up a dozen or more Queen Anne’s lace, a plant that thrives in this area. Link to complete Fall 2022 Garden Kalendar I'm still ruminating on my encounters with weeds this summer. Perhaps before next spring, I'll get something ready for posting to this blog. ~Bob
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Who is Bob?
A Kansas farm boy, married to a Kansas farm girl. During his first 35 years at Coe, he directed the Writing Center, served as coordinator of the WAC Program, founded the Rhetoric Department, and taught over 25 different writing courses. Since retiring in August of 2014 he has been trying to learn how to become a gardener. |