Each Little World

End of the month views: August

I went out to the garden with one idea in mind and then got distracted by the plants. Thus "end of the month plant portraits" would be a more correct title for this post as this image is the only broad view I captured.

The stars of this view are the yellow blooms of Hemerocallis 'Steeple Jackie' (foreground) which has about seven stems just covered in buds. The flowers are delicate but stand almost 5 feet high. In the background is Kirengeshoma palmata, Koreana group. 

The flowers of Kirengeshoma Koreana are more outward facing than the straight Kirengeshoma palmata species. 

This combination has been glowing the entire summer: Berberis thunbergii 'Admiration' and Euphorbia 'Ascot Rainbow'. When I planted the Euphorbia I did not know it was a Zone 6 plant, but it made it through last winter and has done beautifully.

Heuchera 'Pinot Gris' with Abies koreana 'Ice Breaker', a Korean fir that is dwarf mutation of 'Horstmann's Silberlocke'.

An old and unknown Heuchera whose flowers are bouquet-worthy. 

I moved Tricyrtis hirta 'Lightning Strike' to a spot where it gets a little support which has kept it upright. Plus the bunnies have not discovered it yet. 

The flowers of Thalictrum 'Splendide' are more like little balls than typical blooms. But the stems are loaded with color right up into the tree that it's planted beneath. Never expected such crazy behavior but I love the effect.

Japanese Anemones and Tricyrtis are a long way from blooming so I am hoping for a late frost this year. 

The end of summer

Well, at least the end of 'Summer Beauty' Allium. I cut down masses of them growing in my Traffic Island bed out in the street in front of our house. Now the Calamintha nepeta subsp. nepeta can shine for the rest of the season. 

August lilies

Hosta plantaginea is more romantically known as the "August lily" because that's when it blooms and its flowers look like small lilies. It is also one of the few Hostas that is fragrant. I grow ‘Royal Standard,’ a hybrid introduced in 1965, whose flowers are a crisp white. It's easy to ignore these Hostas since they don't have fancy leaves; but they flower just when my garden needs them most. 

For Hosta drama in August, nothing beats H. 'Spritzer'. First, this Hosta has pointed, downward drooping leaves making it a great plant for a slope. But the flower buds are explosive.

There are few Hostas that are as visually interesting in bud and early bloom stages as 'Spritzer'.

'Royal Standard' and 'Spritzer' are among the few Hostas I grow whose flowers I leave in place. 

Though it was Klehm's Song Sparrow nursery that suggested planting H. 'Spritzer' on a slope, I bought my original plant more than twenty years ago at Flower Factory and I see that it is still listed in their catalog. 

IVOM: A late summer bloomer

This last week we've had a few more visitors stop by to see the garden, so I wanted to freshen up the Tea House flowers. The orange lily stem that I featured for our recent big tour group had given up the ghost. But I wanted to keep the lichen-covered stem and the glaucous Hosta leaf.

My garden is almost empty of flowers at the moment; lots of things in bud but not much blooming. I added a trailing berry branch that I clipped before it took root in my garden from my neighbor's big patch. 

Arrowhead (Sagitaria latifolia), which grows in our pond, was about the only flower available but it proved up to the task.

To see what other gardeners have found to put in a vase today, visit Cathy at Rambling in the Garden who hosts this long-running Monday meme. 

The "tourists"

The group who visited our garden on August 11 were from the Scott Arboretum of Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania. Last year a two-person scouting team came at a similar time and on almost the same date in August.

When the group came in person, they told us they scheduled our garden as the last stop of the day knowing how restful and contemplative it was. I was impressed to think that not only did they appreciate our garden enough to include it on their agenda, but they recognized the perfect time to visit.

Despite knowing the group would arrive on a bus, it is always a bit of a shock when it pulls up!

We put down a number of non-skid runners to make sure the deck was safe after the morning rain. 

As with most garden lovers, everyone was friendly and engaging. 

Whether you go on a garden tour or host one, it is non-stop discussion about plants. My straw fan with textile accents generated a lot of talk as well.

Usually most of my time is spent answering questions about our garden or identifying plants. This time I made a point of asking visitors about their gardens. It was a treat to see someone else's garden!

Julie Jenny, the Education Programs Coordinator of the Scott Arboretum (left), was our contact person for the tour. She kept us informed every step of the way and from our viewpoint, the group seemed very organized. In addition to visiting public and private gardens, they went to a number of locations in the region including a dairy farm and Taliesin, Frank Lloyd Wright's home. 

We put out "before and after" photo albums of the garden as well as some historic images of the house from the family who built it in the mid-1950s. Since the Scott Arboretum group stopped at our house at 5 p.m. we knew their next stop was dinner. So we provided water, dried apricots and a Spanish treat that is a cross between a cookie and a cracker. 

Knowing we had a tour scheduled for August, helped us to do a number of jobs that have been on our garden "to do"' list for quite some time. Now it's nice to have those things done and to know that no more tours are coming — until the Garden Bloggers Fling in Madison next June. 

Just before the tour: The Tsukubai and more

As you come around the west side of our house, you are standing on the stepping stone directly in the center bottom of this image. The path splits in two with one direction continuing along the fence around the back of the Tea House to the upper pond. This path turns left at the house taking you first to the Tsukubai. 

Tsukubai is a washbasin typically placed for visitors to purify themselves by ritual cleansing before a tea ceremony. According to Wikipedia, the name  comes from the verb tsukubau meaning "to crouch" or "to bow down." Guests attending a tea ceremony would crouch and wash their hands in a tsukubai set in the tea garden before entering the Tea House. We have a bamboo dipper that you can use if you actually want to perform this ritual.

Looking back the way we just came. 

This view of the house and deck is from the foot of the stairs leading up to the Tea House behind us.

The main color in this garden — no matter the season — is shades of green. 

Looking back to the Tea House from the deck. 

Our Buddha has appeared on the blog hundreds of times in all seasons and all kinds of weather. 

The re-sodded grass square looking pristine and lovely. 

Lichen-covered stepping stones lead past the deck.

Clematis and evergreens are the main plants at this end of the house.

The stepping stones take you to the bridge over the dry stream or the gravel path up the east side of the pond.

At the east end of the curving gravel (above) path is another water feature. 

If you turn right you sweep around the curve of the Turtle Mound; the name is a reference to the placement of the stones on this low hill. 

The more steeply sloping Buddha Mound is to your right while the Turtle Mound is behind you in this image. 

The gravel path continues behind the Buddha Mound to the gate to our neighbors' garden. Though we are on our fifth neighbors in the time we've lived here, we've always had friendly relations and never regretted the gate we created to join our garden with our first neighboring friends. 

The path changes to pine needles as it goes between my two heavily planted perennial beds. This more colorful area is barely visible from the house and deck. 

Looking back the way we came. The pine is doing its annual shedding of needles. This area is almost entirely evergreens which we hope will need less maintenance than flowers. The Japanese painted ferns are all self-seeded in this damp area. I have had great luck with this fern but not because of anything I've done.

Just before the tour: The water gardens

The Tea House sits above the west end of the big pond.

The loss of the big Japanese maple that was at the back edge of the pond has allowed more sun to reach the water — and thus we have more lilies. 

All of our water lilies are hardy and either white or yellow flowered. 

The upper pool nestles next to the Tea House. 

By this point in the summer it is filled with the flowers and foliage of Sagitaria latifolia. 

A stepping stone path crosses between the upper pool and the beginning of the stream and waterfalls. 

The path across the water links the Sacred Grove and the Tea House gardens. 

The stones are wet because birds stand between them and drink, wash and generally splash about. 

Mark and Jon Adams-Kollitz, the young man who helped him build the ponds and stream, worked hard to achieve the perfect sound of rushing, bubbling water. 

This area has always been a planting problem since you need to walk here as you step off the path across the stream. I planted this combo of ground covers last summer and it is the first grouping that has not only survived but thrived. 

This area still has some of its earliest plantings I made in the garden, though many others have come and gone over the years. 

 

Just before the tour: The Tea House in its garden

Large wood-fired ceramic plates by local potters adorn the west end of the house. The stepping stones lead to the deck and the pond while the pine needle path runs between the west side fence and the back wall of the Tea House

The garden on the berm surrounding half of the Tea House is mostly foliage with some Martagon lilies and spring ephemerals. 

Those tied-and-crossed bamboo canes keep visitors off narrow work paths. 

A wider view of the berm garden. 

I bought this large Japanese shop sign for one of Mark's milestone birthdays. At some point he realized it was the perfect size to hang across the Tea House. 

The view looking down from the top of the stone steps leading up to the front entrance of the Tea House. 

The door is very low so you have to humble yourself and crawl in on your knees. 

I suggested Mark add a full size door for those over age 65!

Both door are visible in this shot. 

We bought these cushions from an antique dealer from Japan who had a pop up shop in Madison for three summers. 

We also got a few lovely Ikebana baskets at Jake and Yuko's shop. The tea bowl is by the late Wisconsin ceramic artist, Don Reitz.

We decided to keep our multicultural display with the mix of African, Asian and American objects. 

The upper pool is right outside the Tea House.

There are plants growing in the water and all around its edges. 

Just before the tour: The Driveway Borders and The Moon Garden

The group from Scott Arboretum of Swarthmore College was not scheduled to arrive at our garden until 5 p.m. That meant we could set up the Tea House, blow the paths clear of leaves and rake the gravel easily during the day of the tour. When everything was ready, Mark went out and took almost 200 photos of the garden and our visitors.

I've grouped the best images into individual posts concentrating on a particular area of the garden: the Tea House, the ponds and stream, the driveway and Moon Garden, the Tsukubai and planting around the house and deck. Let's start out front.

Me, in my glory, on the bench by our front door waiting for the visitors to arrive.

To the left of the house at the very end of the driveway is this de-accessioned grave marker under our Forest Pansy Redbud. The backside of this border is a grassy path between our driveway planting and our neighbor's.

I know you want to know what the marker says: "Mary / Wife of / William Lavin / Died / April 5, 1868 / 84 years / Native of Co. Sligo / Ireland / May She Rest in Peace. It's almost impossible to imagine her life. She would've been born in 1784, came across the sea and lived through the Civil War. 

The east side of the driveway garden is a mix of trees and shrubs that are mostly evergreen underplanted with Epimediums and Hakonechloa grass. 

The opposite side of the drive is the stone wall that was done in 2015. The planting here is fairly low maintenance with a number of shrubs and plants that I know will survive. At the end of the wall just past the Orange Rocket barberry are the stone steps up into this garden. 

This is the view from the top of the steps, looking at the back of our symbolic stone lantern and the circular "Moon Garden' whose two halves are yin and yang. 

Mark raked the gravel into a pattern suggesting raindrops as that's how the day of the tour began.

Hostas, Hellebores, ferns, Epimediums and drooping Tricyrtis macrantha (yellow-belled Toad Lily) are planted above the wall. 

The Hostas in this bed are all drama queens: 'Sagae', 'Inniswood' and the beautiful blue 'Abiqua Drinking Gourd'. 

You exit the circle into the Birch Grove which is home to five single trunk River Birch trees and woodland plants. 

The path will take you past Mark's limestone sculpture, along the west side of the house to the edge of the Tea House garden. 

Mark to the rescue again

This is a view of our garden from the roof of the house taken in 1999. The pond and stream and all the rocks are in place but planting has just begun. Initially the garden had stepping stone rocks and lots of curves. I thought we needed more geometry to tie the deck and house to the garden. The result was the addition of bluestone squares and the neatly-edged grass square. I suggested we add that grassy shape to look as though the deck was built over it. 

The grass looked good in the early years before we added trees which are now twenty years old. The shade from the original trees as well as those we planted pretty much put an end to the grass square. 

We debated all sorts of solutions from very low ground cover plants to gravel in a different size and color from anything nearby. Before last summer's tour of our garden as part of the Central Region Conference of the American Conifer Society we temporarily covered the area in pine needles. 

It wasn't a bad solution but it just didn't seem right aesthetically to either of us. So just days before this year's tour from the Scott Arboretum of Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania, Mark decided we should go back to the beginning and re-sod the square. As with most projects, it was easier said than done. 

When Mark went to buy the sod he could not get as many rolls as he needed. Multiple trips were ultimately required to get the necessary rolls as there were weather-related delays in cutting sod to sell.

Then, of course, this area is chopped up into so many small sections that he rarely used an entire length of sod without cutting and fitting it into the desired shape and size.

That said, it looks fabulous to our eyes and we are thrilled with the way it popped the garden into a degree of crispness it was lacking.

Well worth the time, money and very sweaty equity it took!