A Brick Wall

Still no rain and none forecast. The days are pleasantly hot, a little humid, just what August should be. Need some rain, though.

I don't know what to do about the 'Henryi' clematis on the trellis against the brick wall in front.

It had bold white flowers that stood out against the wall this spring, but it was also highly susceptible to clematis wilt (a fact frequently mentioned in all the descriptions, but one that I had missed when considering buying it). This summer it wilted, blackened, and I cut the diseased stems down.

I've done some more reading, and it seems clematis wilt is rarely fatal. The vine should regrow from the roots, although that may take a couple years to really reestablish, and it can be treated with fungicide soil drenches with some success (possibly).

An interesting observation is that clematis seems to outgrow its susceptibility after about 5 years. The bigger the root system the better it fights off wilt.

So, should I wait for it to regrow, treat it with fungicide and see if I get a hardier version of 'Henryi' over the years? Or should I plant a new variety that might be less susceptible and not need all the fussing?

The trellis is very delicate, and a smaller clematis would suit it better.

In a fit of frustration I ordered another clematis, thinking I had lost 'Henryi' for good. I am getting clematis 'Samaritan Jo' this fall, which is a more contained vine (4 to 5 feet only). It will fit the slender trellis better.

'Samaritan Jo' is gorgeous. It is silvery, with delicate purple colored edges, and it's a long all-summer bloomer. Won't that be beautiful against the brick wall?

But now I read that it washes out in full sun, and is best in light shade. Really?? I have no light shade.

I give up.

Maybe I'll just grow plumbago on the trellis instead. I have plumbago in a pot that I simply put in front of the trellis after I cut down the clematis. Right now it is sort of climbing the tower I stuck in the pot, but it could as easily be supported by the trellis.

That might be the way to go. It's a pretty plant and it has the bright cheerful flowery look the wall needs to lighten it up. It climbs if you tie the stems to a support. It blooms all summer. I have to treat plumbago as an annual, though. It won't winter over.

Okay, I've decided I should forget about growing clematis against the brick wall, dig up the root of 'Henryi' and instead put in a plumbago auriculata, which I will have to replace each year.

Now, what to do with the new little 'Samaritan Jo' vine I ordered? I might plant it in a container with a small pyramid tower and put the whole pot in the half shade in Meadow's Edge where the area needs brightening. That might work.

And It's August

It's dry. Ten days with no rain. Strong showers passed through the state today, but we got nothing, not a drop, despite black clouds threatening all around us.

As August comes in it is amazing how many cold nights we've had. The temperature is consistently in the 50s at night. When I get up to make the morning coffee it's chilly.

The nicotianas don't release their nighttime fragrance at all in this cool weather. They're pretty enough, though. I have three kinds.

Delayed by all the cool air, the bottlebrush buckeyes are late to bloom, but have finally -- finally -- opened their rocket shaped flower spikes.

All except that tardy one second from the left. It's a different cultivar, it flowers two weeks later, and I complain about the lack of blooming symmetry every year. Drives me crazy. Jim says the hedge has "character" and "individuality", but those are just euphemisms for a labeling mistake by the nursery.

Black eyed Susans, daylilies, cardinal red lobelias, deep purple phlox are all adding color now. A few of the frilly white 'Miss Manners' obedient plants showed up and I added more this summer, but the big stand I had in previous years is just a little patch. I've been watering and fertilizing it more this year, to see if it does better with more attention.

The deep wine colored velvety 'Ruby Slippers' cardinal flowers keep diminishing every year, but I see some small ones near the patio wall, waiting to open. I'm fertilizing and watering them more this season too, to see if I can revive what had previously been a big stand of them.

The grape leaved anemone 'Robustissima' has silvery buds held aloft, and one pink blossom has opened. This is a plant that does fine with little care. I did stake it earlier in the summer to keep it from flopping over. By the time I got to it last year, the plant was too big to get any supports under it.

Russian sages are blooming now but they are sparse. They seem to be taking several years to bulk up.

Should I cut down the 'Alba Luxurians' clematis by the patio wall? It finished blooming a while ago, and in past years the foliage got tired looking and I cut it to the ground in late July. By September I would always get another full plant, with glorious white blooms all over it.

This is what it looked like in the middle of last October, after hacking it to the ground in mid summer.

This year the foliage looks fine and I am reluctant to chop it down. Will it rebloom on its own if I leave it standing? I guess I'll try leaving the vine as is and see what develops this season, even though right now it's just a tower of uninteresting green. It sure isn't much to look at now.

Each year is so different. Some plants behave differently, just when I had their needs figured out from prior years.  Or some don't show up, after I had created a nice design with them the year before. Some were big and robust one year, wimpy and small the next, leaving gaps.

Sometimes I try new plants and they aren't as rewarding.

This year I planted smaller zinnias, rather than the big Cut & Come Again series which get so unruly -- and what I have now are button sized zinnias that are too tidy and don't provide any summer oomph. They are all pink, not mixed colors this time, and I miss the variety.

Nasturtiums are piddly this year. Mostly I planted Yellow Gleam, and it's too pale and underwhelming, and not very flowery. Give me a big orange or red one.

Every year I end up with empty spots, ratty looking areas, and places that just look weedy despite my careful tending. The containers on the deck need some refreshing too.

My solution is always to run out in August and buy things that are too leggy in their nursery pots by mid summer, then scrabble around in the cement that is the dirt in my dry summer garden, and try to stuff some color into areas that are bare.

That's what I did again this week. My summer ritual -- buy a bunch of pot bound plants in full bloom, scrape out hard dry dirt to put them in, and get frustrated with trying to fix things on the fly. I got gaura Whirling Butterflies, some pink coneflowers, some mixed low mounding zinnias, petunias.

There's not much left in the garden centers as August arrives.

Funk's Plants

Funkia grandiflora -- also Hosta plantaginea

I did not know that hostas are also called funkias, named for Heinrich Funck, a German apothecary and botanist.

In 1812 the plants we call hostas were first named to honor an Austrian botanist, Nicholaus Host, who, in addition to being a plantsman and author of a botany manuscript, was also the personal physician of the Emperor of Austria.

It would seem he was well connected.

Later, in 1817, a German botanist proposed naming this family of plants after the Bavarian botanist Heinrich Funck instead.

As with many of the thousands of plants being classified into the new Linnaean system in those years, confusion ensued, and the name Funkia was finally rejected in favor of Hosta.

But not until after the German name was already in wide use in Europe. In the 1800s gardeners everywhere commonly called these plants funkias, and that name is still used in many European gardens today.

It's somewhat like changing aster to symphyotrichum, which, although official, is never going to happen in my garden. Asters will always be asters, even the ones that are something else now.

Funkia grandiflora blooms

I want to plant Funkia grandiflora, certainly for the name, also for the very fragrant white flowers, and surely for its light green, bright foliage. Gertrude Jekyll loved them, William Robinson grew them, and I think I should have a Funkia grandiflora in my garden too.

But . . .  it's a hosta. Ugh.

Hostas are so overused, so prone to slug and deer damage, and I don't have much shade. I find them plastic looking -- both because they can be endlessly bred to be any color or form you want, and because they so easily mimic fake plants (or fake ones easily mimic the real thing).

I have a couple that the builder put in, so I don't know what cultivars they are, but they both have muddy purple flowers on tall ungainly stalks. The one tucked under a baptisia by the basement window is shaded but goes unnoticed in its out of the way location.

The one along the front walk under the dogwood is more visible, and looks good now, but will be slug tattered and crispy by August.

I love the idea of a Funk plant in my garden, but hate the hostas I have.  How to reconcile that?

(If anyone reads this journal other than my own family, it may help to know that my maiden name was Funk. Just to explain. . . )

Glass of Wine

Come out on the patio. It's 5 p.m.

Oh, I see you're already here, glass of wine in hand. Good.

But did you see the blue plumbago in front? A nice alternative to the white clematis that is no more.

And did you walk around the yard to see the Birch Garden? A lot of white tobacco and pink zinnias today.

Go around to the back of the driveway garden. The silvery mountain mint is very nice next to the dark purple ninebark, but I need more to fill that empty spot in front.

Did you see the tiny orange blackberry lilies on their big stalks -- what a stand they have formed next to the exotic woodland tobacco, Nicotiana sylvestris. Take a whiff, the tobacco is heavily perfumed.

How European . . .  that 'Gold Cone' juniper is very upright and very narrow, very fastigate.

C'mon . . . the bottlebrush buckeyes are still not blooming. So late. In every other year, even as young plants, they shot up white rockets in mid July. It's almost August!

Did you see the little mounding dahlias along the walk? Bright red, they are little things, not at all like the tall dahlias you see with the dinner plate sized blooms. These are sweet.

Okay, back to the patio to finish our wine.

Any cheese and crackers?

Snacks?

Who's cooking dinner on this summer night? I'm busy walking around the gardens.

Fall Bulb Orders

Half an inch of needed rain fell on Wednesday night. Days are summery but not uncomfortable now.

The bulbs I want to plant this fall have been ordered:

More daffodils for naturalizing on the back hill. Last spring the 150 I planted looked cheerful, but were oddly clumped in a ring around the small Norway spruce. I need more to drift off to the left and right sides. I ordered The Works from Whiteflower Farm, another 100 bulbs.

I wanted drifts of daffodils! Not circles. Need more.

More globe alliums in a line weaving through the fragrant sumac. I got more of the same purples and whites that I originally planted: Stratos, Gladiator, and Mt. Everest, all from Whiteflower Farm as a collection. My strategy worked well last spring -- the bulbs were tall and dramatic, and then the decaying foliage disappeared under the late emerging sumacs.

These tall stalks of flowers look best when there are lots of them massed.

Stars of Bethlehem. I ordered 50 Ornithogalum magnum bulbs to spread around all of the gardens for early summer white frilliness. I liked the look very much when I saw the white spikes repeated all over Katherine & Chip's garden early this summer. I ordered them from John Scheepers. Katherine says they spread and move about on their own.

These white spikes were scattered all around
Katherine's garden, and very pretty.

More little irises. I got a few more (25) tiny iris reticulata bulbs, this time a clear medium blue called 'Gordon' to add to the small field of early April blooming tiny irises by the front door. Also from John Scheepers.

'Gordon' has some interesting tiger striping on its little blooms.

Re-establish drumstick alliums. I posted about the complete loss of all the drumstick alliums this summer. All gone. I don't know if the tiny bulbs survived for another season, but I do know many were disrupted as I dug around in the gardens, since I could not see any foliage and didn't know where they were. I got 100 more from John Scheepers -- just a start at replacing what I had.

Last year the drumsticks were so sweet. This year not a one appeared.

This summer I put Allium Millennium in terra cotta planters on the deck. They have been great. They bloom forever and the foliage has stayed nice, not all ratty like most onions get. I will put these in the ground, at the front of Meadow's Edge. They're small, happy, purple blooming little plants.

Allium Millenium, blooming all July. The foliage stays looking ok.

I didn't order any more for this fall; they can be planted in spring as they are summer blooming plants. I may want to order more next year,

Slow Decline

We're back to hot humid summer. The cool weather has gone, but not my rib wracking cough. And now an angry looking cold sore the shape of Illinois has formed above my lip. I suffer.

I fear I am watching a slow rolling catastrophe. . . . not my health, but rather the 'Bloodgood' Japanese maple by the deck may be in decline. It may take years to succumb, but every time I look at this pretty tree, I see a problem gradually unfolding in front of me.

It's no mystery. The tree has phytophthera canker, a fungal root rot. I noticed wet black weeping areas below the graft last year, and Bartlett has been treating it with a systemic soil drench several times a year now.

One side of the slender trunk is hollow sounding when tapped, a sign that there is a dead area under the bark. The affected part of the root flare has turned powdery, and there are now tiny orange fungal spores on the trunk, which is a sign of decayed material underneath.

The tree, helped by the soil drench, will either fight off the canker and heal itself around the dead areas, or it will not. But it will be a slow process before it's clear which will happen.

Although the canopy looks full and the color is rich red, I can see tip dieback on the upper twigs. That's a sign that enough of the roots have died off that the remaining roots are having trouble supporting new growth.

It looks wrong to me. Normally by mid summer the leaves darken to a mahogany color before returning to bright scarlet again in fall. This year they have stayed bright red well into the end of July. It's a beautiful color, but somehow it looks stressed to me, especially in full sunlight. Too bright, too red, too unseasonable.

Overall, it has a funny limp look that is not evident to a casual observer -- really, it looks fine, doesn't it? -- but to me it just doesn't look right.

I planted Acer palmatum 'Bloodgood' in fall 2008, and here it is in 2009 on the left, compared to what it looks like now, five years later in 2014.

What a gorgeous tree. I have every hope that it will fight off the canker and form protective scars around the dead parts. I have every expectation it will heal and carry on and become an even nicer tree. I do not want to watch it slowly decline.

High Summer

I can't sleep. The tail end of my horrid cold keeps me up all night coughing. And what strange nights we are having in the height of summer -- cold, brisk nights that feel like the end of fall. The temperatures have been in the 50s overnight, and the daytime air is cool and damp.

These cool (really chilly) conditions would be perfect for me to be out in the garden doing the edging that I've wanted to get at for a while. Perfect weather for the work, which is not hard, but does require  a lot of up and down activity. But I'm too sick. So the camera does the gardening instead.

Monarch butterflies love onions, who knew? This one spent half an hour drunkenly flitting in and out of the Allium 'Millennium' blooms. At one point it chased Jim around, flitting right at his head until he moved away.

Crocosmia 'Lucifer' is brilliant scarlet red, positively satanic.

In contrast, plumbago auriculata is such a cool delicate blue, highlighted in front of the brick wall.

Tobacco has spread in the garden. This is Nicotiana alata, so delicate and pretty. It is fragrant on a warm humid night, but with our cold nights there has been little scent.

This is tobacco too. It's Nicotiana sylvestris, and is supposed to get 12 feet tall. So far, fully blooming in the middle of high summer, it's only about 4 feet tall, but a striking looking plant.

Summer's evening light spotlights what it wants me to notice.

 Nothing says high summer like big white daisies and a new garden bench under a tree.

Another sight that announces high summer is bottlebrush buckeyes in full riotous bloom. With the cold nights and cool days now, the Aesculus parviflora are not yet blooming. There are tall brown wands rising out of the foliage, but no white bottlebrush rockets exploding. My pictures from past years show all the spikes completely open by July 15. This year the show is still pending.

Gray Metal Bench

I like it.

I have a new bench, tucked into the leafy yellowroot along the berm.

It's in a shady spot in the morning, a great place to sit for a little bit under the birch tree. It went together easily, and sits level without any wobble. It is surprisingly sturdy for a lightweight metal bench.

I need to move the birdbath away from it a little more, though. The birds will decorate the bench and I don't want that.

It's gray metal. I simply cannot bring myself to buy painted accents for the garden, or put bright pillows on the chairs, or place colorful glazed containers around with plants in them.

Almost all my pots are neutral -- terra cotta or hypertufa or cement colored. All my outdoor furniture is naturally silvered teak or black powder coated metal. Accents in my garden include a gray cottonwood stump, a bleached natural wood birdhouse, oxidized brown cast iron tuteurs, a cement colored birdbath.

That iron birdbath in the picture above next to my new bench was a gift, and it was originally painted yellow, but the paint disappeared after the first year and I like it unpainted now.

The potting table and tool shed and the deck itself are weathered cedar. The patio is gray paver stones. A small sundial has a verdigris patina.

I see so many wonderful bright colors used as accents in the gardens I tour -- turquoise blue pots, red lacquered chairs, whimsical painted birdhouses, even a fence woven of shimmering purple ribbons that was fantastic.

I can't do it.

Garden style is personal, and while I love how gardeners use pops of color in the gardens I visit, I am most happy in my own garden with its repeated soothing neutrals that hide in the background.

I like my new gray bench.