Kindergarten Crayon Colors

Sunny and breezy and fresh. Hurricane Arthur passed by us, and we only got a quarter inch of rain, although it was wet and gloomy all day. After the storm, the air for the past two days has been cool and the sun is brilliant.

The Eastern prickly pear (Opuntia) is blooming now. Bright yellow! It's a native cactus in New England, which surprises everyone. Yes, there is a native cactus here.

It is nestled along the edge of the gravel garden, but even planted in the pebbles, it is not dry enough for it, really. Most of the year it looks like mush, and only perks up in summer for a while. The flowers are really happy looking, though.

The same yellow hue is blooming on the 'Blue Velvet' St. Johnswort. A real lemony kind of color.

Clematis 'Jackmanii' is flowering abundantly right now, completely covering the metal tower it is draped over. It actually climbed up to the top of the tower and then ran back down the other side and is now reaching along the ground below it.

It's definitely purple -- a velvety color that is hard to describe.

Butterfly weed (Asclepias) is in bloom. A deep orange milkweed that stays low and shrubby, unlike the tall wild milkweeds in the meadow.

The orange of the milkweed is exactly the same orange as the ditch lilies along the back of the yard and the hot punches of color echo each other from a distance.

There are softer colors in the garden -- some pink zinnias, and the standby whites of 'Becky' shasta daisies and the dangling white handkerchiefs on the clematis viticella. Some soft magenta irises by the creek bed are blooming and scattered lavender cranesbill too.

But it is the kindergarten crayon colors right now that catch my eye -- yellow! and purple! and orange!

Arthur and the Alliums

I can't remember having a hurricane so early in the season. Today, on the fourth of July, Hurricane Arthur is headed up the coast. We aren't directly in the path, but we'll get rain today as it passes by New England. Thunderstorms brought an inch of rain last night, and now Arthur will bring more.

We needed the rain badly.

I don't know if it was the ultra dry conditions for the past three weeks, but there are no drumstick alliums this year. The fine wispy foliage emerged, then turned to hay and laid down in the dirt.

I have allium sphaerocephalon planted in small sweeps all over in Meadow's Edge and in the gravel garden, and every single area has little piles of dry string instead of tall upright wands with purple pompoms on them.

This is how they are supposed to emerge -- last year in June they were tall and sturdy.

And when they open their drumstick flowers on top of straight stems, they are supposed to look like this, as they did last 4th of July.

But they are just totally gone this year in every spot where they had been.

The other alliums in my garden were fine this year. They bloomed earlier, so maybe the last three weeks of rainless weather did not affect them, but did affect the later blooming drumstick alliums.

Here were the pretty little allium 'Graceful' plants blooming in mid June by the patio wall.

And in early June the bright yellow little allium moly flowers opened nicely, although these alliums never spread about the way they were supposed to.

The big globe alliums were dramatic back in late May too.

I have summer blooming alliums 'Millennium' growing in a container, and they are doing very well, but of course they got watered every day when I watered the vegetables and herbs in my pot garden on the deck.

So is it just water and timing? The three week stretch of no water just at the time the drumsticks were getting going? The sprinklers ran, but was it not enough? And now too much?

Water and timing -- sigh. Hurricane Arthur brings us rain and we need it, but does it really have to be on the fourth of July? And my pretty drumstick alliums are getting rained on, but not at the right time apparently. They are lost for the season.

They Were Right

So hot and dry -- it's been three weeks now without any rain and the lawns all over the neighborhood are looking patchy, ours included. We run the sprinklers, but the grass in spots is browning and the gardens are stressed despite the hours I spend trying to water the most vulnerable plants.

Not mine. It could have looked this way someday, though

I hate it when sources are discouraging about something I want to plant . . . like the people who said a pagoda dogwood was difficult to grow.

I had trouble finding a nursery that would sell Cornus alternifolia, and when I asked Bartlett they tried to discourage me. They said they don't do well, although they are native trees that grow wild in the woods. In landscapes for some reason, they perish.

I found a species pagoda dogwood at Broken Arrow in 2011 and put it by the dry creek bed, nestled among the pretty blue forget me nots. It got shade in the afternoon in summer. It did okay for two years, it flowered and the fall color was great, but it had some signs of stress.

This spring it died. It did not leaf out at all, not even one leaf. It did try to flower, with a lot of stunted, half formed blooms.

I took it out and will not put anything in that spot. Earlier this spring the bed of forget me nots by the creek looked a little forlorn without the pagoda dogwood there any more.

(Before the Cornus alternifolia there had been a small redbud in that same spot, a strongly variegated one called Silver Cloud that they said was difficult to keep alive and very prone to die. They were right. Mine died the first winter.)

They were right about the sensitivity of yellow flowered magnolias too, and last spring I lost my beautiful magnolia 'Elizabeth'.

I hate that they were right about clematis 'Henryi' and clematis wilt. Many large flowered clematis are prone to this incurable fungus, but 'Henryi' is often mentioned by name as a susceptible cultivar.

Of course they were right and my 'Henryi' got it. New shoots wilted at the top where the emerging blooms were, then the leaves blackened below, and last night I had to cut the whole thing down.

The big white clematis flowers were so striking. But they were right about its disease susceptibility and of course my pretty plant succumbed.

How I hate it when sources predict there might --- might -- be trouble with a plant, and then it always happens to mine.

The Cassidy Tree

Hot and sunny for several days, but the evenings have been cool and refreshing. Boy do we need rain.

Foliage before planting, still in its pot

A week ago some good friends came for dinner, and they brought thoughtful gifts -- seedlings from trees that grew in their yard. The perfect gesture for a tree planter like me!

One was a Japanese maple, a volunteer from the large old Acer palmatum that grew at their place.

It was a good size sapling in a little pot. It had medium green leaves tinged in wine red at the edges. Our guests said the original had been a 'Bloodgood' tree, but I kind of doubted that, as this sapling didn't have the deep red foliage of 'Bloodgood'.

This elegant green leaved variety, whatever its official cultivar, was perfect for the spot where I need a shade tree by the gravel garden.

I put the little pot where the now deceased Styrax had been. Jim took a picture of the green and wine tipped leaves while it was still in the pot trying out its new location. Nice.

The next morning I planted it.

By late that same afternoon, the green Acer palmatum had completely morphed into a stunningly red, deeply colored jewel of a tree. It is, in fact, a deep red Japanese maple.

The foliage only hours after planting, completely transformed 

I know plants in containers are stressed and don't always look like they will when they eventually grow in the ground. But this transformation was incredible and rapid.

Really, it glows. From this angle the sun lights it up with crimson and fire. From the other side it looks more wine purple, exactly like the mature 'Bloodgood' I have by the back deck.

This photo is not retouched.
It really is that red from this side, with the sun in front

It is in fact an Acer palmatum 'Bloodgood', despite my initial thoughts when I saw its green leaves.

But it will forever be known in my garden as Acer palmatum 'Cassidy'.

Too Blue

Muggy today, in the 80s. We need rain badly, but the big drench that came through New England last night missed us, and we got only a sprinkle. Less than a quarter inch of rain for my thirsty garden.

I like blue conifers. What an impact they can have. I have several:

A bright blue accent at the corner of the walk, growing in an interesting shape.

A low punch of blue at the front of Meadow's Edge Garden. The combination with the wine colored redbud is nice.

At times these big Colorado Blue spruces lined up on the berm are more green than blue

But one blue spruce that I planted has not worked out at all.

Originally, in 2007, I put a 'Fat Albert' spruce in the back yard, in a spot that would eventually become a garden around it. From the beginning this was a mistake.

July 2007, before Meadow's Edge Garden was dug all around it.

I quickly learned that the description "dwarf blue spruce" did not mean low or small or rounded. It meant 20 feet tall rather than the 30 or 40 feet that a blue spruce normally reaches. It clearly did not belong at the front of the garden.

And it was always oddly shaped. This was not a well formed specimen from the start. The selling point of 'Fat Albert' is its dense habit, but this one just didn't have any branches on the back side at all. I planted it with its bare side to the back.

In 2009 I took it out, but unwilling to sacrifice a tree I had bought and planted, I moved it out to the meadow. In the meadow it stayed awkwardly shaped and the bare side didn't do any better with the shade from behind.

But the biggest problem was how steely blue it looked out there, totally inappropriate for the New England woodland and meadow look I was going for.

Hellooo, boys. Ovah heah!

Too blue! It stood out among the greenery of the hillside, brazenly attention-grabbing.

Last week I got out the Japanese pruning saw and sawed it off at the base. I took out a healthy growing tree and disposed of it in the woods. I have wanted to do that for ages -- it bothered me how my eye was always drawn to that bright blue blob out there and how out of place it was.

Too blue

It was hard to muster the courage to take down a living tree that I had planted, that had grown so much in seven years, but it's gone now.

Big improvement. There are enough blue conifer accents in my garden, and the hillside in the distance looks so much more natural now without that blue spruce.

Ladybugs and Gypsy Moths

Had a visitor the other day.

This is a ladybug. Or it will be -- this is the larva stage.

My picture shows the little visitor bunched up, but it really looks like a tiny narrow fuzzy caterpillar. I have to resort to The Google to show what it actually looks like.

The big holes in this oak leaf were not chewed by the ladybug hatchling.  Ladybugs and their larvae eat aphids. The mother lays her eggs where aphids are plentiful, and when the larvae emerge they have food to eat.  So earlier in spring there must have been aphids around here. There are not any visible now, so the ladybugs did good work.

The aphids didn't make those big holes in the leaf before they were gobbled up by the ladybugs and the ladybugs only eat soft critters like aphids, so who is making Swiss cheese of the oak tree?

Ugh -- those holes are from gypsy moth caterpillars. Gypsy moth infestations are awful. On the garden tour earlier in June we saw them on some plants. Ugh.

Now here they are, or at least evidence of them. They particularly like white oaks like this young tree I planted a few years ago. It's becoming a handsome, leafy thing.

Please don't let this be an infestation year for gypsy moths. Lady bugs -- fine. Gypsy moths -- ugh.

Ten Years Ago

June 21, 2004. Ten years ago today we closed on this house.

As the garden has matured, the house has aged. We have had to replace the water heater, painting needs to be done, and the carpets are worn. Builder grade appliances will soon need to be replaced. Inside it is no longer our new house after ten years.

But outside has improved and keeps getting better.

Then.  June 2004

The builder put in sod squares in the front that looked like a badly laid carpet, but the lawn did come in nicely eventually. They put in four azalea blobs along the front of the garage, a terrible location for azaleas, facing south in full sun.

Two gangly lilacs were planted in front of the windows by the front door, where they quickly grew too tall. Not visible, because they were still small, were three gold-leaved spireas that very quickly took over the walk by the front door.

All of the builder's plants were taken out in the first three years. 

Today there is a complex mix of plants in front. It still needs work, but it's getting there, ten years later.

Now.  2014

Ten years ago I was overwhelmed with the openness of our lot. Too much sun. So much sky. Open area all around us. So little privacy from the road behind. So hot in summer, baking in the sun with no trees for shade.

The windows were too big, the sun too bright and the lack of any greenery or shade or enclosure was awful. We were exposed to the elements and exposed to the traffic on the road in back.

In spring of 2005, a year after closing, we had two big maples and some paper birches and a berm of spruces professionally planted by a landscaper. And then I started to plant up the place on my own -- gardens, borders, paths, flowers, trees, shrubs. Over ten years I have planted, moved, taken out and replanted.

I began creating a forest on the back hill where it had been scraped bare. I have put in 60 or more trees, lost about 20 of them, but what has remained now screens us from the road, provides a leafy buffer and creates a backdrop for the gardens in the yard.

This was 2007, two years after I started reforesting. The bare maple in the foreground is one we had installed in 2005.

And now, in 2014 the same maple is surrounded by gardens.

And ten years later the houses and road behind us are not visible.
I'm still putting in new trees all the time.

The row of spruces helped screen us from the road, although initially they looked so dinky.

The berm in 2006, a year after it was installed. 

Now it does provide privacy, in winter, fall, and any season

For a long time the patio we installed in 2006 was too open and sunny, with no shade on a hot day.

the patio in 2007

the patio in 2014

There is finally shade to sit in.

Big changes came after many years -- it was just in 2011 that we installed the gravel garden on the west side of the house and put in the long strip along the driveway. And two years after that when I built the stone wall at the top of the driveway.

In June 2004 the top of the driveway looked like this.

Now, ten years later it looks like this.

I always liked this photo from June 2004 of Jim surveying what we had just bought.

Ten years ago the house looked like such a square block sitting in the middle of nothing.

It's been a good place to live and build a garden.

Plant By Plant

Summery. Blue sky, 80s, some clouds, some breeze, some humidity.

This past weekend we went to a Garden Conservancy event here in town, to see the garden of some local friends.

It's a beautiful and well designed place, with deep, layered gardens full of interesting plants and wonderful structures -- a rustic pergola, a big barn, huge rocks, stone paths and patios, a bridge. It's a busy space, but the hardscape and structures help tame it.

They built it all themselves and it evolved over 15 years. It's a very personal garden.

We actually visited twice, once in the middle of the day during the tour hours, and then again for the after party in the early evening when the tour was over. Seeing it in two completely different lights was a great contrast. Touring it at first trying to see everything was very different than wandering around in it with a glass of wine at the end of the day, chatting with people.

It got me thinking about how we experience a garden and how we typically tour a garden.

"Come see my garden" usually means I take you around my yard to look at each plant.

I garden that way -- plant by plant, tending each, noting how each one does, and it is natural that I want to show you each one. Each has a story, each one was chosen, planted, moved, moved again, and admired by me. I'll even point out where the problem plants are and where all the ones I killed were.

I do step back when I am in my own garden to see how the whole effect works, and I love to sit on the patio and view it all, but mostly I spend time looking at plants individually or how they are grouped.

The tendency is to tour another garden that way too, looking down, checking out each plant sequentially, making sure to get to all the areas to see each growing thing. It takes some discipline to stop doing that and just sit on a bench while other visitors walk by, or stand on a path in the middle for a long time and look around while everyone else squeezes past.

A garden is made plant by plant, but it is really enjoyed as a whole experience of sounds, the heat of the air, the feel of the breeze, often the fragrances, the sight of forms and colors all meshed together, the punctuation of structures, and the surprise of an odd bit here and there.

When I visit anyone's garden I have to remember to see and feel and smell and hear it that way, and not look at it as a curated list of individual things that grow or bloom. And when you come to my garden I have to stand back and let you do the same, rather than guide you around to see each plant.

Just follow the path, wander away, and enjoy.