Archive for the 'Gardens' Category

Magnolia x 'Elizabeth'

Today we took the Easter holiday as an occasion for a long postponed visit to the U. S. National Arboretum.  This venerable institution inspired some of our formative thoughts about gardens during the many visits there while we were living in Alexandria.  It was nice to see that many others had the same idea and parking was at a premium as people tried to follow the self-guided cherry trail that the USNA folk had set up.  We mostly followed our own eclectic interests in moving around from area to area (there are 486 acres so having a car helps).  I think the highlight for us was the hybrid Magnolias.  In other years I’ve been put off of some of these Magnolias because of late spring frosts that leaves them looking shell-shocked.  But when they work, oh, my oh my.  Our favorite was Elizabeth, as pictured at the start of this post.  The tree is perhaps 30 feet tall and covered with creamy yellow flowers that open finally to a red center as the fruit begins to ripen.  The flowers are nicely fragrant to add the icing to the cake.

Magnolia x 'Elizabeth' is perhaps 30 feet tall

Magnolia x 'Elizabeth' open flower

Magnolia x 'Elizabeth' flower with fruit beginning to show

There are a good number of other hybrid Magnolias featured as well.

More hybrid Magnolias

We revisited some of our previous haunts at the USNA like Fern Valley.  But we also found new features that we hadn’t seen before.  Near the R Street entrance is the bonsai exhibit and just outside of it is a delightful little shade garden under towering cryptomerias.  And if you look to right and left of the entrance (and inside as well) are Japanese Maples.  Not fancy ones, just plain old beautiful Japanese Maples.  We have several of these magnificent trees as well.  And just like ours the ones at the USNA seed the ground like the propagation of the species was the responsibility of each and every plant.  There are seedlings everywhere.  Apparently great public gardens go down the same paths that we have trod ….  In the end we concluded that the trees are worth the myriad seedlings.

Entrance to the Bonsai Exhibit — note the Japanese Maples (Acer palmatum)

Lovely Shade garden under the Cryptomerias

Japanese Maple seedlings

One of the reasons for going to a great public garden like this is to be inspired or learn new things about the art and practice of gardening.   It is after all why we have Cryptomerias up here in Frederick (which is probably pushing the climate zone where they are happiest).  We saw several things that we’ve added to our want list.  There was a trillium that we have to get because it matches the name of one of us and because it’s pretty as well.

Trillium cuneatum (Little Sweet Betsy)

And an epimedium that has a cloud-like cluster of flowers above its leaves.  Very floriferous indeed.

Epimedium stellulatum

But one of the things which was most surprising out of the day was little elm from China that has some of the prettiest green flower seeds that you could imagine.  Imagine a tree with green flowers.  I’ve not seen these pictured anywhere but I found them quite striking.

Chenmou Elm (Ulmus chenmoii) seeds

Helleborus x hybridus 'Heronswood Yellow w/red spot'

On my way to spring training I was able to stop at Plant Delights in North Carolina during one of their open house days.  It was a real treat to make my first visit there (I’m sure there will be others in the future).  The place is well named as it caters to the people who are delighted in the rare and unusual in the gardening world.  Part of what makes both the online presence and the actual place enjoyable is the personality of the owner, Tony Avent, whom I bumped into as I toured the grounds.  His enthusiasm for gardening bubbles over into his descriptions and interpretations of plant characteristics.  I noted that he seemed to push the boundaries of what could be growing in North Carolina and he responded that when he had failures he would go back and find another plant “higher on the mountain”, looking for the individual specimens that would survive.  In other words, a lot of intelligent experimentation.

The garden was open for touring but not a lot had come into flower yet because of the cold weather.   I saw a flowering cherry and camellias, but what particularly caught my eye was this Algerian Iris.

Algerian Iris (Iris unguicularius)

Very pretty and early -flowering to boot.

The garden was interesting for it’s winding paths which are heavily mulched and water features.

Garden pathways

Everything (and I mean everything) was labeled.  A lot seems to have been planted relatively recently but there were some really nice specimens like this Japanese Crepe Myrtle with cinnamon-colored bark.

Lagerstromia fauriei 'Townhouse'

The plants for sale were headlined by the Hellebores that were at their peak, with many interesting varieties to whet a gardener’s appetite.

Hellebores for sale

I came back with four new varieties but left this lovely double for the future.

Helleborus x hybridus 'Mardi Gras Double White'

There were a great many other interesting plants on display, including shade lovers, sun lovers, hardy and not-so-hardy, all of them carefully labeled with descriptions.  I think about seven greenhouses in all that were open to the public, though there are a great many more in production.

Row of greenhouses at Plant Delights

I spent about four hours going over the choices but could easily have spent longer.  As it was I came away with 18 tiny treasures that represent things that I either knew that I needed before I came or didn’t know that I needed until I came to Plant Delights  :)

Garden treasures from my visit

This is the time of year when I venture to California to visit with my mother.  While yet another snowstorm covers up the snowdrops again I visited my mother last week and checked up on the plants that are growing vigorously almost any time of year.  The outstanding elements in January are always the pair of Camellias that dominate the side of the house.

Camellia blooms dripping off the bush

Camellia wall

They grow so easily and flower so vigorously that it seems almost criminal.

Another spot that gets my every couple of months check is the back bed.  The back of the yard was once a lovely flower garden that my Dad planted but it got overrun with nut grass.  My cure was to build up the bed and put in pots with a drip irrigation system that waters only the pots not the surrounding earth.  This I did quite a few years ago and by and large it works pretty well if the irrigation tubes don’t get knocked off or the timer reset.

The back garden

There are now three dwarf citrus trees along the back wall and numerous perennials.  My mother pointed out last trip the value of pinning down the drip irrigation tubes and that has proved to be a very valuable step.  The citrus are yielding less than last year, but everyone is still pretty much alive back there and that’s a major plus.  That’s Cape Honeysuckle with the orange flowers hanging down from the porch.

Cape Honeysuckle (Tecomaria capensis)

This is a vigorous plant with attractive flowers the year round.

It’s a little bit early for the plants in the back bed to be flourishing, but I did notice that because of the heavy rains last month the part of the garden outside of the pots that does not get watered by irrigation was covered withs seedling Calendulas, a number of which were already up to flowering size.

Calendulas self-seeding

One could do worse than having Calendulas go wild.

I added a few plants this trip, as is my common practice.  This time I found a really nice tall Pink Coral Pea.  It fit in very nicely where the Dahlia had been eaten by snails and next to where the Bougainvillea has not made up its mind whether to grow or not.

New Pink Coral Pea (Hardenbergia violacea)

The large vine provides instant color to the bed.  However the joke was on me.  As my mother pointed out we already had two very large specimens of this big shrubby vine at the side of the house.

Existing Pink Cora Pea

Because the nursery plant was well ahead in flowering I didn’t realize that the same plants were already in the yard.  Credit one to the supervisor.

The Supervisor

I also put in a Peacock flower and an Anemone Coronaria, but the final step as an investment for the future was to add a little tomato plant.

Tomato seedling (Celebrity)

This one is surrounded by diatomaceous earth to provide an ancient drying spell against snails which run rampant in California gardens.  We’ll see if it makes a difference to the slimy sort…

One of the Dahlias at Volunteer Park

We were in Seattle on our way to hike around Mt. Rainier and on a morning stroll from our B&B we encountered the very lovely Volunteer Park Dahlia Garden at the peak of its bloom.  This was a great way to see many Dahlias side by side all covered with the morning dew.  This wonderful little garden is maintained by the Puget Sound Dahlia Association and it’s well worth a visit if you are in the area.

Sign at Volunteer Park, Seattle

Volunteer Park Dahlia Garden

Dahlias at Volunteer Park

Dahlia 'Crazy Legs'

Dahlia 'Hamari'

Dahlia 'Tomo'

Dahlia 'Neon Splendor'

Freezing Tomatoes

We are about to take off to hiking in the Northwest for a week and so we’re gathering in some more of the harvest before we go.  The soups, sauces, and tomato supper dishes were not keeping up with the influx so we’ve taken to freezing the tomatoes.  Much like we do with blueberries, the tomatoes are simply cored and spread on a cookie sheet to freeze and then we take those rock solid red tennis balls and put them in plastic bags.   Then at some point we will add those tomatoes to tomato-based sauces this winter.

One of the fruits reaching the harvest point right now are the Japanese Pears.

Japanese Pears fully ripe

This a tree we often call Josh’s miracle tree for the spectacular recovery it made from a near death experience.  The full story will be told at a later date…  Suffice it to say for now that this is a consistent yielder of fully organic, no-need-to-spray fruit.  The flavor will never match a good Doyenné du Comice Pear, but you can’t have everything…

The Japanese Pear is a prolific bearer every year

I should have mentioned earlier that the early mums that we get every year are doing their thing and have been out for at least a month.  Don’t know why they come so early but we won’t complain.

Early blooming Chrysanthemum

This is a good time of the year for butterflies and dragonflies.  I noticed one odd looking dragonfly the other day and I now realize that it’s quite common.  In fact it’s known as the ‘Common Whitetail’.  Nonetheless it is quite distinctive to look at.

Common Whitetail (Libellula lydia)

We’ve just had two days of rainfall (finally!) but I went out one of the hot dry days before that and dug a new Iris bed.

Tilling a new Iris bed

I really went for overkill but who knows what else can go in this sunny spot before we get enough Iris to fill it.  At the moment we only have an additional 9 Iris from Schreiners and several from our Boston connection but once I was into digging I had to complete the row.  It was very dry but I persisted with the plow attachment on the roto-tiller and then filled the trench with water and repeated the process.  I think I could have used the sweat from my drenched tee-shirt to soften the ground as well.  I followed by filling the new trench with compost and then doing it all over again.  Even with all of that it would probably be good to let the remainder lie fallow and do it again next year but we shall have to see what else needs planting in the interim…

On the bird front we had a cute little visitor the other morning.  My guess is a Yellow-Throated Vireo but I’m open to other interpretations.

Yellow-Throated Vireo? (Vireo flavifrons)

And let me close this post with another image of the Northern Sea Oats.  The world can simply not have enough of these beautiful plants which look different in every kind of light.

Northern Sea Oats (Chasmanthium latifolium)

The daily picking baskets

I saw a reference to Summer Fest on A Way to Garden and since this was the Tomato week for that celebration I thought it would be good to talk about the tomato harvest here.

Last week we saw the movie Julie & Julia (Great flick!).  It certainly sets a high standard for appreciation of food and it’s preparation (though I probably saw more butter than I’ve eaten in my lifetime).  We have currently been relishing our own incoming produce and the many minor variations of cooking everything that’s being harvested.  It’s mostly tomatoes, peppers, squash, cucumbers, beans, onions, and eggplant.  The evening meal is some variation of tomatoes, peppers, squash, onions and eggplant stir fried together in olive oil and balsamic vinegar with garlic and herbs to taste (Beth uses fresh stuff from her herb garden and I tend to grab the dried products off the shelf).  For protein we throw in some tofu or chicken meatballs and a little mozzarella cheese.  If I’m the one doing the mixing some kind of nuts will be involved (pine nuts, hazelnuts, or walnuts).  Every night is slightly different but always delicious.  The ritual ends with us lifting the plate to our lips and draining the plate of the last of the luscious tomato-based sauce.  Altogether with cutting up this takes two people maybe 15 minutes to prepare and could not be much better.

However, even with this kind of eating we’re not even close to using the produce.  Beth cooked up a couple of  batches of tomato sauce for the winter this week.  This gives her more opportunity to tap into her herb garden.  And we’ve been giving stuff away as well.  And yet, the refrigerator overfloweth.  I feel bad for the folks in the northeast who’ve been hit by blight.  We were fortunate that everything was grown from seed and we have had sort of a mixed bag of rainfall — good rain early on and a lot of dry sunny days in July/August — which has had me doing hand watering but it’s been good for the tomatoes and peppers.  I don’t think we’ve ever had peppers this nice.

Some big blocky red peppers

Tomatoes are slowing down but many still on the vines

The hot weather has made it less desirable to work in the garden and it is starting to get away from me.  But I also know that we are going hiking in the west in a few days so that there is only so much I can do anyway.

Garden is getting overgrown

Hummingbird in the Corn

With all the flowers in the yard doing their thing with the gay profusion of high summer it’s worth noting that there is that ‘other garden’ where all the veggies are coming into the house on a daily basis.  Now that the vegetable garden is fully fenced off from the deer (thanks Benner Gardens) for the first time we are getting yields that are reminiscent of when we first moved here.  That is to say more than any two people could possibly use.

Bringing in the Corn

Of course even though we relish the taste of the fresh beans,corn,squash, potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, peas, and so on, it was never just about the food coming in.  It’s the whole process of putting seed in the ground, feeling that fertile earth between your fingers (and under your fingernails), anticipating the rainfalls that make it happen, and then seeing the flowers that lead to the veggies.  And along the way are all the birds and insects that come with the process.

Over time we have added more and more flowers to the vegetable garden.  I guess it was a gradual recognition that a 5000 square ft garden produces more food than we really can use.  I mean it’s hard to really justfiy 20 tomato plants… .  We now plant a large cutting row in the garden in addition to the sunflowers, dahlias, and gladiolas which have their own dedicated row.  Both contribute to the birds and butterflies that we see in the ‘vegetable garden’.

Cutting Garden

The cutting row is chiefly zinnias, cosmos and marigolds, but any of the wildflower seeds that can compete with them are encouraged to grow as well.

Now it may be the careful digging of all those rows or just possibly one of the rainiest May-June periods that I can recall but the garden as a whole, flowers and veggies, is growing wonderfully well.

Cukes in the garden trail up the fence

Even the early corn is 6' high

Strawberries and Peas

This year I took a good look at the old strawberry row replete with weeds that were very well established.  I decided it was time to start a new row.  This had two major positives right off the bat.  It meant I didn’t have to weed the old row and the weeds would definitely have a slower start on the new row.  On the other hand it’s a fair amount of labor to put in a new row if you do it well.  So I compromised by putting in a partial row on the theory that even unweeded the old row was going to yield some berries.  

I usually plant a double row with 1 foot spacing so even a partial row is 75 plants to be planted by my extensive labor force (me).  The ground has to be well-tilled so it has all the usual problems of trying to get plants in the ground around the April rainstorms.  I finally got them in about mid-April.  And then added pine bark mulch to try to suppress the weeds for a while.  I’ve used straw in the past but it’s tough to find bales with no grass seeds.  

As it turns out we did get a fair amount of strawberries from the old plants and now the new plants are beginning to yield.

The New Strawberry Row

Now a better man than I would have pinched off the blossoms so that the plants could go stronger for next year but I confess to limits in my ability to delay gratification.

Earliglow Strawberries

The varieties I put in are not particularly special (Earliglow, Allstar, and Sparkle) but hey anything you plant in your home garden is so much better than what you find in the supermarket.  And there is nothing quite like picking a hot strawberry and eating it in the garden.

Another daily yield right now is coming from the salad crops.  The combination of actually weeding them and the regular rainfall has given us some of the best greens we’ve had in a while.

Salad Crops in Early June

And with peas and asparagus there has been ample reward to going out to the garden every day…