Each Little World

End of the month views

One of the visitors to our Open Garden last Friday evening was Steven King, Vice President of the Wisconsin Daylily Society — and an excellent photographer. He posted a wonderful group of images of our garden on the Wisconsin Hardy Plant Society FB page. Pam Penick's photos in late June gave me a series of end-of-the-month views of my garden then. Now Steven's July images let me see what things are looking like one month later.

It is always fascinating to see what captures someone else's eye when they visit your garden. I have a tendency to take pictures from the same locations over and over again.

Steven shot a number of views from spots where I never stop or in directions that I rarely look. I love it when I look at a photo of my own garden and have to stop and figure out where it was taken.

Even familiar views look different when taken from a different angle . . .

or closer in . . .

Steven and I talked about turning around and taking a photo of where you've just been. 

The image above and the one below are opposite each other. You only see one view unless you turn around.

Steven got the perfect shot of the new symbolic water garden. The western sun lit up the pattern of water drops in the pond. 

Thank you again, Steven, for all the wonderful photos you took of our garden and for sharing them with the members of the WHPS.

Open Garden Tonight

This week the temperatures dropped down into the 70°s with the highs only hitting the low 80°s. I decided it was the perfect moment to host an open garden evening for members of the Wisconsin Hardy Plant Society. The garden is definitely showing the effects of this hot summer. But the cooler temps meant Mark and I had the energy to work outdoors and spruce things up. And it will actually be pleasant to be out in the garden from 4:30 until 7:30 this evening. 

IVOM: Simple solutions

I don't have a cutting garden.That rarely is a problem as there are usually enough flowers to cut a few without leaving a hole. The garden, however, is in a lull at the moment. Astilbes, Daylilies and Veronicastrums are all blooming but they look too perfect in the garden to cut them. Instead I stuck a stem of Amber Glow Ninebark that needed trimming into a "vase." I enjoyed it enough that I added two more vases and more greenery. 

The "vases" are empty bottles from Fever Tree Elderflower Tonic. I've been washing the paper labels off and saving them until I had enough to put in a row down the table. Now they have nothing on them except for their raised logo of a tree. I actually have 6 of them; enough to  make a long line of them down the table should I ever have a dinner party again. 

I didn't want to just set them on the bare table so I found this old paper-covered tray to use as a base. I set it on a runner so it wouldn't scratch the table top. Not the fanciest display but it's held its looks for over a week. I think I will wander around the garden this morning and see what i can fine to replace this group of stems. 

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

Local inspiration

Last month four members of the Wisconsin Hardy Plant Society opened their gardens for late afternoon/evening tours. Our "garden girls" gang of four toured them together. That way we got to socialize, share info and answer each other's questions.

The plant behind the Rodgersia (below) is Stylophorum diphyllum aka Wood Poppy, happily growing in the garden of Mary Ellen and Tom LaChance. This can be fairly aggressive in a woodland garden. When I've found it in my garden I've always pulled it out. But it was used to great effect in two of the gardens. I fell in love with it on this tour and just ordered one for my garden. 

I have not had success with the flashier varieties of Athyrium ferns but I am ready to try again. I think this is A. 'Oceans Fury' and I have a spot for it next to my Hakonechoa grass to recreate this scene from Rita Thomas' garden. 

This pairing of a Hosta with Shredded Umbrella Leaf (Syneilesis aconitifolia) in Rita's garden is a much more attractive combination than the grouping in my garden. Another idea worth imitating. 

Andrea Diss-Torrance lives around the corner from where I shared a flat in the 1970s. This is a view of her neighbor's back steps from the path into Andrea's back garden. Not really my style and yet it's pure perfection catches my heart.

Andrea is a serious gardener and uses her side of the path for plantings and tools.

She is the queen of container plants with dozens of them staged on her back deck which has steps framing two sides. 

She has a greenhouse/shed and incredible willow structures to hold up climbers. Most amazing of all are her wattle fences. Her property is a lesson in garden history as well as proof that you can be creative in small spaces. 

Stephanie O'Neal's garden is another example of small space gardening. When I got home I realized I spent so much time talking with Stephanie that I never took any pictures of her garden.

An early Locust pod

More and more our honey locusts drop endless amounts of seedpods in the autumn. At that point in the year they are dark brown. Some are velvety and some are glossy. 

But I've  never seen one at this stage of its development with that warm orangey tone with the apple green edge. It had the soft velvet texture and was too pretty not to capture in a photo.

IVOM: Stewartia pseudocamellia

We planted our Stewartia 22 years ago in an area where we kept adding another unusual tree. We assumed some would die but no one did. Last year we had to take out one of them  as they were crowding each other. The Stewartia stayed, even though we can only see it when we go looking for it.

We usually discover it's blooming when we find its flowers on the ground. As I was cleaning them up, I set aside the most recently fallen ones to take indoors.

When I float Hellebores, I always pack the bowl full of blooms. With Stewartia, I think fewer flowers look more elegant. 

The central "poppy seeds" make this flower perfect for my favorite speckled dark brown bowl.

Last winter we took out an old cherry tree that was shading the corner where the Stewartia grows. Hoping that more light will cause a few blooms to form on the lower branches so we can enjoy them before they fall to the ground. 

GBBD: 7.15.2022

My Ligularia and tall Thalictrums were all in bloom at this point in the summer for the last two years. Another sign of how the weather has everything on a different schedule this year. At the moment it's lightly raining but it looks like we're soon going to pass through the big hole in the center of this storm. Aargh, my garden is dry as a bone. But there are some lovely bright floral spots:

Lilium canadense are still performing.

But July in the Midwest is daylily season, Hemerocallis 'Petite Sioux'

H. 'Lady Inora' with Astilbe taquerii 'Superba'

H. 'Little Rainbow'

Euphorbia 'Ascot Rainbow' is Zone 6 but my last plant returned for a few years. So I'm giving it another try. 

I'm still in thrall to my new Hydrangea serrata  'Mountain Mania'

Hakonechloa grass with Sedum 'Matrona'. I like it best at this stage before the flowers have really opened. 

Hostas are beginning to bloom, along with Alliums and a few sporadic Geraniums here and there. In my garden, mid-July is more of a foliage than a flower moment.

An unmatched pair

I never plant pairs of things, whether perennials or trees. Too often one of the pair underperforms and ruins the intended effect. But I am a sucker for variations of a particular plant. Sometimes I scatter them throughout the garden; more recently I put a pair of shrubs very near each other.

They're separated by a Peony, Epimediums and Euphorbia. I like the look of them near each other but not shoulder to shoulder. I planted Hydrangea serrata 'Mountain Mania' last year and immediately fell in love with it. The foliage emerges this wonderful warm orange with pinkish-yellow flower buds.

The foliage is a bright, slightly yellow green for most of the summer

The open flowers are two inches across. 

Every time I went out to look at this plant the flower color had subtly changed. It's not often you can fall in love with a shrub that is still so small. 

The foliage on Hydrangea macrophylla 'Game Changer Picotee' emerges bronze and changes to a deeper green than 'Mt. Mania.' The flowers look similar to the other Hydrangea but these are a much more dramatic three inches across.

You can see how close they are to each other but they won't both really be visible at once for quite a while. 

The view from the other direction. Since they are at the edge of the Upper Pool you can't get close to them from this side. I was standing in the gravel/symbolic water to take this photo. 

My pair of dwarf Oakleaf Hydrangeas are right next to each other to make a substantial "groundcover" shrub. I am still hoping to find H. arborescens 'Mary Nell' which is considered one of the best for pollinators. She is not an easy gal to get ahold of.

IVOM: Quickies

Our book group met Sunday morning at our house. It was so lovely out that we sat on the deck, talking books and politics. Since we were having guests I made sure i had flowers in the bathroom. 

Clearly I did not spend a lot of time making an arrangement. But I was happy with it for being fast and easy. 

When it was finished I decided that the tortoise shell cover for the little cube box of tissues looked too wintry. So I swapped it for this fake shagreen box. I have a silvery metal one that I use at the winter holidays as it goes well with my grandmother's silver dresser set that I always put on the vanity. 

Our book group has a set menu: One couple brings smoked salmon and crackers. Another brings pastries. And we usually do cheese with a baguette or interesting crackers. Sometimes one of us adds fruit or a little something else. I decided to make this Asparagus, tarragon and goat cheese tart that was on the cover of Melissa Clark's latest book, "Dinner in French." Delicious and super easy. Mark wanted cherries, so we had a big bowl of them. 

We've entertained so little since Covid began that I decided to set a nice table. Nothing too fancy, just enough to feel special before we decamped to the deck. 

The plexiglass napkin rings are tiny vases. People are always surprised and amused to discover them. I've had them forever. All in all it was a lovely way to start the week. 

Back from the dead

We planted our 'Forest Pansy' redbud tree, 22 years ago this month. It's a tree with big gorgeous leaves summer and fall (below). We had a lot of winter dieback the first few years which made us nervous about the tree's survival. It also leafed out later than any other Redbuds in the neighborhood. 

When we checked with Peter Moersh at Stonewall Nursery, he gave us this advice: "If it hasn't leafed out by the 4th of July, it's probably dead." Though he was joking, we took that concept to heart and no longer worried. It was always so full and gorgeous by the 4th that we often had to prune it. This is what it looked like on June 10th of this year. 

It seemed pretty clear that last year's drought and the lack of snow during the winter had put an end to this beauty. We were too busy to do anything about it right away, other than half-heartedly talk about replacement trees. But then something happened. The two lowest branches started to leaf ou — and not just with a few scattered leaves. Still, the tree looked more than a little sad with only those two branches covered with leaves. 

By the time the 4th of July arrived, the tree was sprouting new growth all over.

New foliage was on most of the main trunks and branches.

One minute I think it looks silly; the next sublime.

It seems as though the tree is going to survive after all, though it's probably too soon to count our blessings. But two things are clear. (Double click to clearly see the live and dead branch mix.)

One: That Peter's humorous advice is spot on. And two: We're lucky we were too busy to cut the tree down.