Pruning in the Gloom

Wow, it's been incredibly gloomy, dark, overcast, cold and rainy this May. A nice day here and there and then more gray.

I've been doing some pruning out in the gloom of day.

Every winter I cut back the big rangy smokebush above the stone wall at the top of the driveway. I cut it back to a stump just a foot above the ground, and it comes back by the end of May all full and leafy.

Cotinus coggygria 'Grace'

But by summer it's always a monster, with long, arching, out of control stems. Gardeners advise doing a second cut back in late May, right when it is the size mine is now. They advise cutting each new stem back by a third, and that will help the plant send up more vertical shoots, and perhaps somewhat shorter branches.

This is the first year I've taken that advice. I went out on a damp dark day and snipped each new shoot back by a third. After cutting back, it didn't really look any smaller, but maybe a bit tidier. By cutting off the new tips I lost the translucent look of the foliage, which is a feature of 'Grace' smokebush. We'll see now if this effort keeps it more upright and shorter in summer.

It doesn't look much different after snipping back.

I'm getting help with pruning from the deer. All the garden phlox has been snipped off, every last stem. Those white dots in the greenery show the damage to each stem.

Chomped and chomped.

Between the deer damage and the gray skies, it gets discouraging. Jim listened to me wail about it, then started googling "land mines for home use" and "venison recipes." His efforts do help.

Should I cut out all the dead parts of this poor shrub? Rose of Sharon is very late to leaf out, but there are shoots coming up nice and leafy from below, yet a lot of dieback all through the canopy.

Hibiscus syriacus 'White Chiffon'

There are no buds ready to open at all in those browned branches. With the shoots coming up lower on the shrub, I think I can severely lop off everything that's not leafing out and let the new shoots take over. I don't think you can kill a Rose of Sharon.

That will be my next gloomy pruning job to do.

Away From Here

Some of my plants don't like me and beg to go live somewhere else. I offer as proof the fact a red honeysuckle I gave to my sister two springs ago is now a glorious flowering vine at her place.

It wound up as freebie to her because it didn't like me. I had ordered a different honeysuckle several years ago from High Country Gardens, and this came (mismarked) instead. So we hit it off poorly to start.

I moved it a couple times, I potted it, it sulked and we just never got along. Now, climbing the fence near her pool, it is finally happy. I do love red flowers. And I do love that it found a better place to live than with me.

My other sister has some plants from my garden that I took over to her small patio space a few years ago. The Bergenia I gave her was never content in my garden, and the few I have remaining still look awful. But at her place pigsqueak thrives, with huge glossy leaves and a real presence.

Some plants just want to be away from here. That's okay. They found their homes in other places.

Stressed

Some things I thought would have survived last summer's drought really well have come in this spring looking stressed, and some plants that are water lovers sailed through and look great this spring.

The hedge of bottlebrush buckeyes looks fantastic this spring.

Aesculus parviflora, all green and full

To the left of the full shrubs there is the open space where we had one plant taken out (it was a different cultivar and looked odd). In that open space suckers from the original plants are filling in nicely.

Bottlebrush buckeyes want shade and water. They get neither in my full sun site, and they struggled mightily in the dry summer last year, refusing to flower at all and spending the season with browned leaves.

But here they are this spring, no worse for wear and looking lush.

The other buckeye in my garden is a red-flowered Aesculus pavia, a small tree with scarlet firecracker flowers.

It's a young tree, and this is the first year it has flowered well.

This little buckeye tree is also a water lover, but it came through the dry summer and looks the best it ever has. It's new and little, and this is the first year I've seen such a nice flower display.

Love the red spikes.

Both stewartias look really good this spring. They aren't the water lovers that the buckeyes tend to be, but they can be easily stressed in any hard conditions. The stewartias had no issues with the drought.

But other plants that like dry conditions and are tough as nails have come back this spring looking awfully miserable.

Comptonia, a tough suckering plant that likes dry and lean soil, has dieback throughout. I have already cut out some dead branches, but it looks terrible this year. Here it is in another year, looking great, but this spring it is too bare and open to even photograph.

Comptonia (Sweetfern) in prior years, full and lush

Another surprise is caryopteris, which is also supposed to like dry and lean soil. The woody caryopteris plants are slowly emerging this spring, so they survive, but the three I have are small and a little stunted looking so far.

And the herbaceous caryopteris, 'Snow Fairy' is barely emerging at all. There are a few wobbly looking shoots coming up. It emerges late, but this is the end of May, and there is almost nothing to see of this plant.

Stubs of 'Snow Fairy' caryopteris, with only a curled leaf or two emerging.

It's right under the thriving red buckeye. Did the thirsty buckeye manage to take all the water that was available last summer and starve the plant beneath it?

In summer this caryopteris is a full, shrubby plant, with white edged variegated leaves. It lives this spring, but looks like it is barely hanging on.

'Snow Fairy' caryopteris last summer, with its pretty variegated leaves

Another plant having a tough comeback this spring is my Rose of Sharon, despite being a tough, reliable plant. Hibiscus syriacus is always the last of the last to leaf out in spring, but never quite this late. It's slow, but you can usually see some tight budding getting ready to break when it's finally ready.

This year I'm seeing almost nothing. It may be fine, just delayed beyond its normal slow schedule, but it looks sort of dead right now.

This winter was mild, and we've had plenty of rain this spring, but last summer seems to have hit the dry loving tough-as-nails plants the hardest.

And there are other stresses right now. Our house is for sale, and we had a handful of lookers the first few days it was on the market, but no showings this week, and none scheduled.

Feedback from the few lookers we had was unhelpfully neutral -- "priced just right", "shows well", "not interested".

I'm a little stressed but trying to relax about it.

Anniversary

It's our wedding anniversary today. The doublefile viburnum marks the occasion every year by blooming perfectly and profusely and prettily, without fail.

It suffered in last summer's drought, but came back this spring as if nothing happened. Over the years harsh winters or heavy ice loads have done their damage, but the next year this doublefile viburnum blooms beautifully. It carries on, despite everything, and flowers reliably at the same time each spring.

There's a metaphor in there for how marriages work or something, but without belaboring the obvious, we are going out to enjoy a nice dinner and will come home to see this pretty shrub flowering as it always does to celebrate our anniversary.

Gulp . . .

The Top of the Drive

I am pleased to see this spot at the top of the driveway finally come together. For the first time since I "designed" (a loose term) this view, it looks just right.

As you come up the driveway, you are greeted by a stately paperbark maple, and you see the little stone wall I built to mark where the parking area pavers edge the gravel garden. To the right is the walkway to the back yard, anchored by that asymmetrical blue spruce. It was supposed to be a dwarf mounded conifer, but it isn't. I actually pruned off about a quarter this spring to get this size and shape. I like it now.

To the left is a metal arbor and gate leading into the gravel seating area. I planted a male kiwi vine to cover it, and it's taken a while to start arching over the arbor. Finally, it's doing that. I'm still waiting for the pink coloration on the tips of the leaves. That takes a few years to show. But I do like this view now.

Fragrant creeping thyme has grown around the stepping stone at the entrance and is spreading into the gravel. And those are big, glossy, full inkberry hollies bordering the gravel area. They provide dense screening and a sense of privacy from the rest of the yard as you enter.

What I'm really pleased about at the top of the driveway is that the creeping phlox 'Fort Hill' has finally shown up. I had a hard time over the past three years getting it to take. I planted a line of them to drape over the wall and they disappeared. I bought more and replanted, and they still did nothing for a couple years.

This spring they are wonderful. They're finally colorful and spreading all along the wall. They aren't draping over the edge of the stones yet, but they promise to.

What you don't see in this area is the smokebush, which is at the top of the wall in the middle. It's still a cut-back stump right now, allowing the low creeping phlox and daffodils to take the stage. Later in summer there will be a large shrubby smokebush there, but by then the daffodils and the phlox will have gone by.

A few years ago I stuck a broken stem of sedum into the crack between some stones in the wall, and now it spills out abundantly, growing, apparently, on just grains of sand in the wall.

It has taken a while, and I got discouraged about ever having a nice spring view at the top of the drive, but now, finally, it looks great.

A Guest Post

Today, something unusual for this blog -- a guest post written by my sister Pam:

A gardener I am not. Nor am I a blogger, but my sister, the author of this blog, has graciously allowed me to do a guest post.  

Many years ago, after an extensive addition to our kitchen, we realized we could see directly into our neighbors' family room. So, my sister, the gardener, to the rescue with a suggestion for a plant screen. Her recommendation was a fringe tree. And so it was planted, spindly little specimen that it was. It was just starting to grow taller and fill out when I, as a new widow, moved to a condo. How I lamented leaving my little tree behind. Well, nothing to do but go buy another. 

Last summer, with my sister's guidance, I again purchased what seemed to me just a brown stick. I had little hope that this half dead stick would thrive. 

Here it is this Spring and look at how it is doing. I am so thrilled. 

Fringetree - Chionanthus virginicus

Additionally, she planted several landscape plants around my newly installed patio. This shade loving azalea (is that an oxymoron?) has done very well, and I love the pretty pink blossoms. 

A pink blooming shade loving azalea 

She was so excited to plant this Pigsqueak mostly  because she just loved the name. But it has  thrived and even produced these pretty pink flowers. I seem to have a pink theme going on here.

Bergenia cordifolia - Pigsqueak

One would think watching this sister work her magic on my site, I would be well versed in producing a show stopper patio landscape. Hah!! My only contribution to beautify my space was a healthy-when-I-bought-it hydrangea. It died.

Site of a dead plant

So while I sit on the sidelines watching her do her magic, I get to reap the rewards of a talented gardener who seems to enjoy having another canvas on which to create.

Oh...I do make a mean quilt! 

A different form of garden magic - a garden of colors and shapes

--- with thanks to Pam for this post!

Soaked, Then Sunny

Three and a half inches of rain on Friday -- a complete soaking. Then Saturday was sunny and breezy. A red wine seemed right.

The blackhaw viburnums are in bloom now, and I can never capture their subtle flowers. They blend into the green background. They are flat, and creamy white, not bright.

But they are showy in their own way. I wish I could get the camera to highlight the graceful, quiet prettiness of this little tree.

Is it unreasonable that this line of five 'Tide Hill' boxwoods delights me so? I don't know why, but I love it. A small fothergilla 'Mt. Airy' blooms behind the boxwoods. It has white pipe cleaner brushes that stand up. They smell like honey if you get close.

For years I have had ever-increasing patches of blue forget-me-nots each spring, but I lost almost all of them in last summer's drought. There are only two clumps left under the viburnum tree in a wet part of this garden.

I used to have a big beautiful stretch of them, and even did the "plants spilling out of a container" thing one year. They were seeding around in lots of places in different gardens.

But except for the two little clumps remaining, none of the rest of all the shallow rooted forget-me-nots came back. I really do miss the river of sky blue sunniness streaming alongside the dry creekbed.

With a day of soaking rain followed by a day of sun, the forget-me-nots would have been spectacular.

Forensic Gardening

Remember earlier this spring I showed the American holly that had lost almost all its bark -- I thought the cause was sunscald from our hot February followed by a brief cold snap this winter.

Post: My Ilex opaca won't survive

But even as I came up with that theory it didn't seem right. It just wasn't that cold for that long after the warm spell in February.

Chris from Bartlett was here today and he looked at it and said "this tree lost its bark the winter before -- in 2015-2016 when we had such a harsh season, with subzero temperatures for weeks on end."

The injury occurred because Ilex opaca, at least when first transplanted, is cold susceptible in zone 5. And that winter two years ago was brutal.

There are mature, beautiful Ilex opaca trees in Connecticut -- they do grow well here although it's the northern end of their range. But they have to experience several mild winters when young in order to go on to live happily when older. Then they can take a brutally cold winter once fully established. But not the first years after transplant.

The brown edge is scar tissue that
grew last summer to seal the wound

The way Chris knew it was damage from a prior season is that the little strip of remaining bark had formed a tight callus to seal the wound. That could not have occurred yet this spring, it's way too early for any bark growth.

That scar tissue grew around the edges last summer, so the damage was there from the winter before that. The loose, dead bark had stayed wrapped around the tree last year so I never noticed it had come unattached. Now, this season, it disintegrated and fell off, exposing how extensive the dead area is.

Forensic garden analysis -- it's one of the real fascinations of gardening. I now have a cause for the holly's impending death, and a timeline reconstruction of how it happened. But I still don't know why it had to happen.

Why did my American holly have to spend one of its first young years after transplant in winter's iciest clutches? Why couldn't its first winters here have all been mild ones, like this past winter?

I'm Impressed

Today the realtor's photographer came back to re-take pictures of our yard for the MLS listing. That impressed me.

I had been uneasy about the gloom and drizzle on Monday when he first shot the outside, and today was sunnier, much better for garden photographs. So the pictures were re-done with a bit of mixed clouds and sunshine and brighter light.

The pink dogwood in front had opened its blooms a bit more since Monday, although it's still not in full brilliant flower yet.

And although the day wasn't quite as bluebird sunny as when I took this picture earlier in the spring, solar panels do look much more efficient against a blue sky, don't they?

I was impressed that the photographer came back and took pictures on a better day.