Each Little World

Cornish inspiration

We all have certain flowers that we love; the ones we never tire of and can't have enough of in our gardens. Among my loves are Erythroniums, Fritillarias, Primulas and Hellebores. So I was thrilled when Gardens Illustrated magazine took its subscribers on a digital visit to Bosvigo, Wendy Perry's garden in Cornwall. I'd come across her garden before and fallen completely in love with it because we're clearly fans of many of the same plants. I printed out the pictures of the garden from this digital tour on 8 and 1/2 x 11 inch paper so I could study all the details.  (Frits, Erythroniums and Aenmones in Bosvigo below). 

Looking at these pictures of her woodland garden made me think about what I am growing in the garden where the Tiger Eye Sumac came down last summer. That area in my garden has all four of my favorite plants but they're not knitted together nearly as well as the ones in Wendy's garden. The appeal here lies in both the related colors and the spread of the plant clumps.

So, of course after drooling over these pictures, I went online and added a few more things to my previous order from Klehm's Song Sparrow Nursery. Two mostly yellow Hellebores ('Sandy Shores' and 'Spanish Flare'), another dark one ('New York Night') and Epimedium x youngianum 'Royal Flush' (below). I first saw this Epimedium on the website of the Elizabeth C. Miller Botanical Garden in Seattle and have been on the lookout for it ever since.

There are already Erythroniums, Galanthus and Primulas growing in this area that should be ready for diving this spring. The Hellbore and Epimedium foliage will help to cover the bare spots left by the ephemerals. Wendy has wonderful dashes of blue in her garden from Corydalis (below) which I will swap out for the blue of Brunnera or Jacob's ladder (Polemonium) which I am already growing successfully, 

Wendy's garden is two acres so she can grow more plants and larger swaths of them than me. But these views offer inspiration and ideas for smaller gardens based on color, texture, foliage and understory trees. It's a perfect classroom image for a spring garden! Here are the plants from Klehm that I will add to the area in the photos at the bottom.

Hellebore 'New York Night' (above) and H. 'Spanish Flare' (below)

Here are Primulas, Epimedium and a Hellebore already growing in the area where I will add these new plants. 

You can see I've already got the yellow, pink and purple color combo started. 

At the far edges of this bed are two different pink Peonies and Dicentra spectabilis 'Gold Heart' with its pink flowers and yellow foliage, so I think my new plant purchases will work well here.  I don't think I will ever miss the Sumac that I took out since its given me all this lovely space for new plants. 

The other zonal denial

Since I don't have a greenhouse or room indoors to keep marginal plants alive when the temperatures fall, I've pretty much avoided growing things above my USDA Zone. But in the spring of 2017, I tried a little zonal denial by planting a beautiful Alstroemeria 'Inca Ice' and a Sarcococca 'Fragrant Valley.' Both of these are plants that typically need a zone warmer than where I live. But these varieties were both listed as hardy for my zone. Alas, they died along with a depressing number of older shrubs and trees in the winter of 2017/18 when we had extremely cold temperatures with little to no snow cover. In fact, our biggest snowfall last season happened in late April.

PHOTO: DEC. 15, 2017

When I look at the print garden catalogs that are now arriving in the mail, I always look to see what zones are listed at the end of a plant's description. When I go plant shopping online, I tend to click on all those special ways of digitally searching — like listings of new plants, rare plants or those that a nursery has hybridized themselves.

Now and then I look at what plants a nursery offers that are specifically appropriate for my USDA hardiness zone. When I used my Zone 5 as a search tool recently, I had a bit of a lightbulb moment. Something I've known for as long as I've gardened in Wisconsin was right there in front of me; I realized I had been seeing it but not really acknowledging it in recent years. 

What I saw were the temperatures that go with a Zone 5 designation:

USDA Zone 5a:  —20° to —15° degrees F.

USDA Zone 5b: —15° to —10° degrees F.

In reality, we recently woke up to a low temperature of -28° with a wind chill of -48°,  significantly colder than the expected lows for Zone 5.

PHOTO: MARCH 2, 2017

According to the map, I live in Z5b. I have an urban garden which makes it a little more protected but I have been ignoring, if not denying, that very cold zonal truth. We've had multiple snowstorms since the Winter Solstice (Dec. 21). They've beautifully covered garden with a deep blanket of snow which I hope was enough to protect everything from the Polar Vortex temperatures we just went through. We had a few days were the temps went up into the mid-40s: a change of 70°almost overnight. Then back to snow and freezing rain and snow again. 

Despite all of our talk about warmer weather as part of climate change, it is the drier winter with little snow cover and cold temps like we had last year that is deadly for gardens like mine. Rather than playing with Z6 plants, I should be thinking about Z4 or even Z3. Time to get real in the garden again. No more planting for hotter summers. It's the colder winters that I need to be thinking about when I go plant hunting from now on.

The garden photo I didn't take

Our prolonged cold and snowy weather meant that I've been spending a lot of time paging through the latest print garden catalogs that came in the mail as well as trolling for plants on-line. I kept making lists of plants to order and crossing them out; constantly adding and subtracting.

My garden, for example, has a beautiful Glaucidium palmatum (below) and I finally found a source for a white-flowed version that I've lusted after. But what I could not find were any photos of what my garden looked like at the end of the season to figure out if I have room for another big shrubby perennial — no matter how long I've longed for it! 

In the spring, I am out in the garden on my hands and knees working or wandering around with a camera — noticing and capturing every little thing as this shot from May shows.

By mid-summer the garden gets more and more full of plants and my digital files get equally full of photos. 

Then came the massive rains and flooding of late August which put paid to this 'Tiger Eye' Sumac. I dug it out rather than try to get it back in the ground, propped up who knows how long. Once I'd done that chore, I loved the open look of the bed. It inspired me to start dividing and moving crowded plants as well as adding a few new things. 

But now here I sit with no good photos of what things looked like as I reconfigured this bed and the one across the path from it. All I photographed were images that show how the big leaves from the stripe-bark maples cover this area when they fall. I had to rake them up before I could put down the mulch of chopped leaves we'd created to help insulate these new plantings in case we had a winter like last year's.

There are snowdrops and Erythroniums and Primulas and all the other old and new plants growing here that were dormant or cut back when I took this photo. I do have id cards on what I planted in the fall and where, as well as notes in my journal. But I can't get over the fact that I did not think to take some pictures to jog my memory. Once the snow covers this area, it is fairly inaccessible until spring. I will just have to restrain myself from ordering anything for this area or only order bulbs and ephemerals which can always be shoe-horned in.

Peony Heaven

When I think about my family's garden "history," it's mostly about vegetables. Though there were flowers in the yards at the houses where I grew up, I think they were there when we moved in. In his later years my Dad had Alzheimer's, and while he was still able to live at home, my most lasting memories of him are in the garden tending Peonies. Thus the Peonies in my garden always remind me of him even though I mostly grow species Peonies and not the big blowsy beauties we had. 

Though my garden is packed full, I think I have room for one more Peony. And this spring, Klehm's Song Sparrow Nursery in Avalon, Wisconsin, is offering the beauty I've had my eye on since it was first introduced. I've been waiting for the price to come down but it hasn't. And I'm not going to wait any longer to add Paeonia 'Golden Angel' to my garden.

KLEHM SONG SPARROW WEBSITE PHOTO

Here's Klehm's description: "Newly emergent stems have red and gold color to add an intriguing accent to spring bulbs such as daffodils. Then, as the foliage completely unfurls it shows the gold tones that inspired its name. As the season progresses the foliage matures to green. Single soft cream yellow blossoms are lovely atop the foliage."

SOLARIS FARMS WIKI IMAGE

Isn't this a stunning plant?!! I have had little success with P. Molly the Witch and this seems like an excellent replacement for her. I wish I had a bed that I could devote to Peonies. I'd grow one or two old classics for the fragrance because the newer ones usually only have a very slight fragrance. But I love the colors and forms and quirky flower types that are available these days. 

'Coral Charm' (below) was a big breakthrough in Peony color and it's easy to see why it is an award winner. 

P. 'Spumoni Whisper' is swoon-worthy beside having a great name!

I used to only like the very traditional Peony flowers. But over years of looking at Klehm Peonies, I've come to appreciate some of the forms that are quite unusual and not at all what comes to mind when one says "Peony."

'Daisy Coronet' is a perfect example of what I mean. She's kooky but has a large dose of dramatic charm with those dark maroon-red pistils! It's worth mentioning that 'Daisy Cornet' is an early bloomer with small 2-3" flowers and the plant is only 22 inches tall. That means she can be blended into a garden more easily than some of the more showy Peonies.

Roy Klehm is the sole hybridizer for 'Daisy Coronet' and 'Spumoni Whisper' and shares the honors with another hybridizer on the other Peonies show here. Though the Klehm family has been specializing in Peonies for generations, they offer a wonderful selection of perennials, shrubs and trees as well. I've bought a lot of different plants from them over the years and highly recommend them. Good value and great packaging so I've never had a plant get harmed in shipping. 

Roy Klehm has spoken to the WHPS many times over the years and often lets members shop in person one day each spring. But I wrote this post because I discovered Klehm long before I found WHPS and think the nursery is well-worth recommending. 

What we learned

I had a great time at my Saturday workshops on "recording" the garden and people seemed to find the experience useful. And just as I hoped, there was a lot of sharing of tips and techniques for keeping track of our gardens. Here are a few of the things that surfaced at the workshops that I thought might be of use to other gardeners.

Recording on paper vs. online: The dozen gardeners who came to the workshops were different ages and levels of experience, but it turned out that just about everyone used some kind of paper record-keeping — index cards, journals, notebooks — even if they did most of their note-taking on the computer. I think that was a surprise to all of us.

Use Pinterest as a garden shopping tool: Make a Pinterest board for each garden bed or project. Include images of the what the garden bed looks like now, along with any inspirational ideas that show what you are hoping to achieve. Use this board as the spot to put pictures of all the plants you want to buy for the area. Since you can access Pinterest from anywhere on your various devices, you will always have all this information with you when you go plant shopping. You can show it to nursery staff if they don't know the plant or need more info. 

What's in a name: I suggested that garden "records" should tell the story of your garden. They don't just need to be lists of plants and projects. One of the other gardeners noted that she names her garden beds but they all have a personal story and connections. It hadn't occurred to her before our gathering that the names of the different areas could tell that story, rather than being based on location or the type of plants growing there.

Organizing information by area vs. the entire garden: I happen to have an old library card catalog so I keep track of my plants via an index card for each one. They are filed alphabetically by botanical name. Another gardener uses an accordion folder for each area/bed in her garden. In it she puts all the plant tags, index cards with information for each plant and any other information she wants to keep. If she moves a plant from one bed to another, she moves the card from its current folder to the folder for its new location. I thought this was a pretty efficient and effective system, especially if your garden has clearly delineated beds and areas. 

The downsides of 3-Ring Binders: Most of the gardeners who came to the workshops all used binders for various garden records and tasks. But one of the gardeners mentioned that she finds that once something gets put in a plastic sleeve in a binder, it never leaves. I think she's absolutely correct. I have a garden binder that has some great magazine clippings of garden ideas that I will never do. But inertia keeps them in the binder. And we all agreed that a binder is not easy to schlep around the garden making notes in place. 

I thought Mark or I would take some pictures while everyone was here, but it did not happen. The groups spent the better part of two hours looking at my Keynote presentation, asking questions of me and each other and making suggestions. Then we spent half an hour looking at all the various record-keeping methods I showed them in the pictures in person. 

IVOM: Christmas roses

Most of the Hellebores in my garden are what are commonly called Lenten Roses  (H. orientalis) because they bloom in the spring near that religious occasion. Most of mine typically start to flower in late March or early April.

But I have two clumps of what are known as the Christmas Rose (H. niger) in places like Britain where it blooms at this time of year in their warmer climate. In Wisconsin where I live, it is usually too cold for anything to be actually flowering.

My H. niger were purchased as Zone 5 plants from the late Seneca Hill Perennials in New York State. They referred to them as "Thanksgiving Hellebores" because that is when they bloomed for them. Mine are usually up and budded at turkey time, but it is usually already too cold for them to open.

This year's on again/off again winter had me outdoors on the afternoon of the Winter Solstice with my garden clippers. I created the arrangement in these photos then and it is still looking good almost two weeks later.  Until I had these H. niger flowers in front of me every day, I never realized the buds are washed in pale pink. 

I put this vase in my bathroom hoping the higher humidity would help it survive. The flowers have continued to open but it is a much more restrained display than these plants offer in the garden. The bouquet includes leaves from two different Hellebores, Heuchera foliage and one of the beautifully patterned leaves from Arum italicum 'Ghost'. 

To add a holiday glow to my bathroom, I suspended a pair of large glass ornaments from the wall scones. 

Since these are made of clear glass they get lost when hung on a Christmas tree. This let them shine center stage for a brief time. 

I put out my grandmother's silver dresser set as well to really up the shine factor.

To see what other gardeners have found in their gardens to use in a vase today, visit Cathy at Rambling in the Garden, who hosts this lively and long-running meme. 

The lame duck made me do it!

Last week's lame duck debacle in Wisconsin had me in need of serious distraction! Luckily, it arrived in the form of an e-mail from Carolyn's Shade Gardens in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. Her message stood out like a beacon in a sea of breaking news updates that were too depressing to keep reading. Carolyn, on the other hand, was announcing the arrival of her 2019 Snowdrop Catalog.

 

Of course, I immediately clicked on it and placed an order! I would not call myself a "galanthophile," the name given to those who obsess and obsessively collect different varieties of snowdrops aka Galantus. But I am willing to admit that I love the lore and lure around plants like snowdrops and species Peonies that have a long history replete with fascinating stories.

 

You can buy easily buy the most common varieties of snowdrops out of season as bulbs like Tulips or Daffs. But they are one plant whose success is touted to buying them "in the green," meaning right after they've finished flowering. To do that, you need to live in the UK where this is a common practice or live near a grower in the States. OR find someone like Carolyn's Shade Gardens who sells snowdrops in the green at her nursery in the spring as well as on-line.

 

The plants I just ordered will come next spring after they've flowered in her nursery. Hopefully, it will be only a brief span between their arrival in the mail and when I can plant them out in my own garden. The timing is always a bit of a hit-or-miss proposition but so far it's worked for me, having placed my first order with Carolyn in 2014.

 

 

I have had good luck with the more reasonably-priced snowdrops like G. nivalis 'Viridapice,' G. woronoii and G. 'Magnet' (both photos above are my clumps of 'Magnet') but not much luck with any of the expensive yellow ones. This time I splurged on only one variety that should make a statement ('Johnathan' below), along with some guaranteed performers from Carolyn's stock (G. elwesii and G. nivalis).

 

I will plant them in my main flower bed that gets lots of early sun and has good soil and drainage. The only drawback is that it is the farthest from the house so I will definitely have to walk up to watch for them blooming. But they will be growing near my species Peonies which are equally early and always draw me out multiple times per day.

 

CAROLYN'S SHADE GARDENS PHOTO

 

"The Plant Lover's Guide to Snowdrops" by Naomi Slade is one of the plant-specific titles in the excellent Kew guide series. It is a good place to get information on these bulbs and how easy or difficult specific varieties are to grow, along with any quirky cultivation information. Carolyn Walker is one of the snowdrop lovers profiled in the book. 

What's my name?

I don't know about you but this looks like a boxwood with a creamy edge or variegation to me. When I saw a group of these beauties on display at a local nursery, I instantly fell prey to temptation and brought this one home with me. The tag gave its name as 'Glencoe,' one of the Chicagoland Growers series.

All of the many boxwoods we grow in our garden are from the Chicagoland series. We've never lost one, no matter how cold or fierce the winter. The only time we've lost boxwoods was a nameless pair foolishly purchased on sale at Home Depot.

Here's my problem: When I went online looking for more information on 'Glencoe' all I could find were solid color boxwoods with nary a mention of a creamy margin. I couldn't find any variegated boxwood listed as part of the Chicagoland series. So something is not right.

The nursery where I bought the plant is now closed for the season. I will check in with them next spring, but in the meantime, is anyone growing 'Glencoe' boxwood or one that looks like this? I'd love to hear from you if you are. 

Bulbs begin to arrive

. . . in the mail, not blooming in the garden. Yesterday I got a little box from Brent and Becky's which had three bags of snowdrop bulbs: G. nivalis 'Viridapice', G. woronowii and G. Sam Arnott. I have small clumps of the first two that I planted "in the green" from Carolyn's Shade Garden out east. This time I decided to add more typical fall planted bulbs. Last spring I actually marked where my other snowdrop clumps are planted so I will be easily able to know where to put these additions.

Sam is one of the largest in bloom size and height, so he's going under my dad's memorial Ginkgo tree where I should be able to see him from in the house when he arrives above ground next spring.

G. 'Magnet' (above) is coming from Old House Gardens which last offered it in 2014. It's a strong grower and holds its flowers on unusually long pedicels making for a particularly striking floral display. I've always regretted I did not order more at the time, so I was thrilled to see it available again. Here it is in my garden in 2015.

At this time of year when I am adding new plants, dividing and moving old stalwarts and putting in bulbs, all I can think about is next spring. Here we are on the cusp of autumn and all I want is to jump ahead two seasons. It is a crazy way to be thinking and yet it is that desire to see what comes next that keeps me going from year to year into — hopefully — a ripe old gardening age.

Late summer plant splurges

I should probably never have signed up for email newsletters and alerts from from nurseries that sell online. There is nothing like getting a sale notice from Avant Gardens in Massachusetts or a list of new and restocked plants at Far Reaches Farm in the PNW. I recently pulled out the plastic to put in orders at both nurseries. Amazingly enough. Avant Gardens sent me a message that they had to postpone shipping because they were having a heat wave. But my little order has arrived now. 

I only ordered half a dozen plants, all of which I have had experience with and thus are likely to settle in and succeed in my garden. I was already growing a couple of Dryopteris x australis ferns from Plant Delights that I planted in 2016. They were $16.00 each and have proved well worth it. So I was more than thrilled to add three more from Avant Gardens at only $14.00 each and on sale for 20% off my total order. I also got a pair of mini 'Cameo' Hostas which are perfect for my circular front garden, a painted fern — 'Pearly White' — with no red markings and a slender and slow growing Ginkgo tree, 'Sky Tower.'

Avant Gardens always adds a bonus plant and imagine my delight when my prize turned out to be this beautiful Cyclamen purpurescens.

  

Avant Gardens ships their plants via UPS and I had an email giving me the date and a time window when the order would be delivered. On the delivery day I forgot all about watching for my box of treats until after dinner.  When I opened the front door I found a massive box on the bench. Even though it had started to lightly rain, I left the box right there. I carefully unpacked everything and put all the plants in the basement laundry sink where I could give them a drink if and as needed. 

Notice how well-labeled this box is. And note that the size is because I got a very large Ginkgo tree and ferns whose fronds were at least a foot tall. Everything was wrapped in unprinted newsprint, given enough room so as not to crush the neighboring plant and swathed in what we always called excelsior. 

I wondered if I could use the excelsior in my compost bin, so I emailed Katherine Tracey at the nursery. She told me that's what they do. 

So that's what I'm doing as well. I just took big handfuls of the stuff and pulled it apart as I stood over the compost bin, letting it fall in as it came apart. There were some big pieces almost like mats so I put them down on the dirt in front of the compost bin. Now I can step onto something other than mud  every time I want to empty the kitchen compost bucket.

. . .

PLANT UPDATES: All these things were put in the ground a couple of days before our ten inches of rain and came through with no problems. However, on further reading i discovered the Cyclamen likes it dry in the summer so it has already been moved to a new spot that will better meet that condition. When I went out to check on everyone I could only see one of the tiny Hostas. I knew I'd planted them right near each other and eventually I saw the fat neck of the 2nd plant. Our bunny brigade clearly was busy. I immediately caged both the tiny Hostas and the little Cyclamen. I had forgotten that the rabbits attacked all my mini Hostas when they were first planted. Now they are generally ignored.