Each Little World

Plant spree

I recently bought 20 plants at my favorite local nursery, Flower Factory, and managed to get all but one of them in the ground within 48 hours. I bought 2 to 5 plants of each variety except for three plants  that were onesies. Even those were joining their siblings in the garden so I felt that, though I bought a lot, I was very focused and didn't stray from my list. 

I added ferns (Dryopteris australis, Polystichum makinoi, P. polyblepharum), Lizula (wood rush) and Asaram splendens all to the Turtle Mound in my ongoing effort to stabilize the slopes that can no longer grow grass because of the shade. Dryopteris australis (Dixie Wood Fern) is a tall workhorse fern. I've been planting them for that last few years and they've come through every kind of winter and summer weather. 

A few fancy plants: Another hardy Begonia to hide another summer bare spot left by one of my dormant Trilliums. Heuchera 'Silver Gumdrop'; this summer marks my first venture into this Heuchera color. Tricyrtis 'Samuri', a shorter toad lily with gold-edged leaves and dramatic flowers for the front of the border. 

I've had a love/hate relationship with both native and European gingers (Asarum canadense and A. europaeum) because they proved to be almost invasive in my garden. But given the fact they are colonizing the Turtle and Buddha Mounds, I've made peace with them. Not only am I letting them spread to their heart's content, I've added A. splendens — the variegated beauty in the lower left corner of the photo above.

We've had a four day dry spell this week so I got out in the garden and worked, worked, worked as next week looks rainy again. Since it's the end of August, I plunked two shrubs and a small tree into holes in the border where they will sit until Spring. I hope by that time I will have decided where they should permanently be sited.  

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. 

'Splendide' indeed

I am growing seven different Thalictrums. They range in size from Thalictrum kiusianum aka Kyushu meadow rue which is about 4" tall. This spreads slowly, can take some sun and nothing seems to bother it. 

Thalictrum rochebrunianum 'Lavender Mist' usually tops out around 6'. The stems are sturdy and stay vertical unless they get hit with a severe wind storm. This has always been the drama queen of my meadow rues — until now. 

I bought Thalictrum 'Splendide' from Digging Dog Nursery in 2016 and this summer it has done its third year leap if you know that gardening mantra. This plant was discovered as a seedling between T. elegans and T. delavayi by famed French Heuchera breeder, Thierry Delabroye, according to Digging Dog. You can see its foliage behind me in the image below. 

This plant is listed as getting about 2' wide which is the width of mine and 5-9' tall. The tape measure I'm holding below marks the top of the flower stalks at 10.5' tall! Except for a few stems which have bent downward, most of the flowers are lost in the tree's leaves. The tree is helping to stabilize this tall plant so I shouldn't complain that it's hiding the flowers. 

At this height there really isn't another location in the garden where the same thing won't  happen. Despite buying 'Splendid' because I loved the idea of a really tall Thalictrum, I never believed it would reach the sky. 

Summer pots

The deck is currently home to a plethora of potted plants; all waiting for me to have enough energy to dig holes and get them planted. Most of them are shrubs and trees like the two below. These two are spending their second summer in pots. Eventually they'll get planted in the ground, but I'm enjoying being able to see them up close for the foreseeable future. This is Ginkgo biloba 'Sky Tower' which will be about 20' tall and 6' wide at maturity. 

Chamaecyparis obtusa 'Thowell' is a dwarf Hinoki cypress with a naturally narrow undulating form, according to Avant Gardens where I purchased it online. The brick was a gift because it almost spells my last name. 

My pair of Hostas on the deck look about the same as they do every year. But they are the limit to my flowering plants in containers.

Flower Factory Foray

Is there any treat more delightful than a gift certificate to your favorite local nursery? Not to my way of thinking. I went out to spend my Flower Factory gift on a cool and cloudy Sunday afternoon. I was very good and only bought two plants not on my list. I stayed so focused that, as usual, I forgot to take pictures of their beautiful displays of potted plants ready to take home. I snapped these few images on the way from where I parked my car over to where I picked up one of their red wagons to use while I shopped. Loved these brilliant poppies surrounded by what I believe is Dianthus carthusianorum.

A coral tinted Peony sparkling from the early morning rain. 

The Peonies were in front of one of my favorite garden sheds, complete with a green roof.

I was mesmerized by this huge swath of Lady's Mantle (Alchemilla mollis). 

I've always grown a few in my garden because of the electric lime color of the flowers and the way its pleated leaves capture raindrops. Seeing it at Flower Factory convinced me that the big group of Lady's Mantle in my garden had not gotten out of control. It was in the process of turning itself in a swath and I realized I was lucky I did not pull out most of the plants before I visited Flower Factory. 

I always have a stack of empty pots but never know who takes what. Now I am going to rinse down all the containers from this haul and take them back to Flower Factory when I go out there next. 

Here's my latest haul. I could barely managed to pull the wagon; it was so loaded with plants. 

I had a list of plants, the number I wanted of each and their location to make shopping easy. I also brought my catalog with me. But what I really appreciate is the fact that Flower Factory uses a scanner and so my receipt lists all my plants by name. Since I make i.d. cards for them and keep track of what I planted where, this is a real boon to my record-keeping. 

I mainly bought more of the plants that have been doing well for at least a couple of years or more in my garden. A week later and all but two plants are in the ground and looking good. 

FERNS: 3 Dryopteris australis (Dixie Wood Fern); 1 each Osmunda claytoniana and Polystichum makinoi

GENERAL PERENNIALS: 3 Heuchera 'Lava Lamp', I each Heuchera 'Blackberry Crisp' and Heucherella 'Brass Lantern'; 3 Verbena hastata, 1 Geranium 'Dragon Heart', 1 Origanum 'Norton's Gold'

GRASS: 9 Carex rosea, 5 each Carex Pennsylvanica and C. davillariana, 1 Sesleria autumnalis (Autumn Moor Grass)

Expert advice

When someone in the know offers a clue as to the best way to site a plant, it is foolish not to take their advice. I know I don't always do it, but the times I have done so resulted in such beautiful displays that I need to remember to be open to expert advice when it's offered. 

I've been growing Epimedium grandiflorum 'Waterfall' for eight years. The breeder gave it a name that says how the plant looks as well as telling you where to put it: Someplace where the waterfall effect will be obvious, if not emphasized. I put mine on a gentle slope above a low wall where its cascading leaves provide a striking display all season. I underplanted it with Hosta 'Rhythm & Blues,' not realizing how well the Hosta foliage would add to the downward flow visually.

Slightly to the right of the above group and a bit lower down is Tricyrtis macrantha. Gene Bush, of the late Munchkin Nursery where I found this plant, calls it the "King of Toad Lilies." He also said to "give it a rock, log or edge of a bed to flow down and over." In my case, I gave it a rock edge of the bed and it flows like a dream. 

Both the Epimedium and the Toad Lilies have become stars of my garden because I let someone else tell me what to do; a much-needed lesson for this control freak!

Market finds

I love Foxgloves but only the peach colored varieties which are always in short supply around here. I almost ordered some from the East Coast but decided against it. So I was thrilled to discover Digitalis 'Dalmation Peach' recently at K&W in Janesville. I was even more thrilled to discovered a vendor selling them at the local West Side Farmers Market last weekend. That color is perfect with Berberis 'Orange Rocket'. 

I don't buy many annuals other than herbs like Basil. But the same vendor was selling Salpiglossis plants, an old variety that is rarely seen these days. I fell for it and bought three of them. The colors range from dark red to almost black with wonderful purple-striped variations in between. The variety is 'Royale Mix'.

When is a fern not a fern?

That's the phrase that caught my eye when I saw this charmer on the Far Reaches Farm website last year. Pteridophyllum racemosum is a Japanese plant that looks like a fern that flowers.

It made it through its first winter and bloomed! I am thrilled as it is even lovelier in person than on-line.

I planted it by this mossy grindstone thinking that the growing conditions would be right; but it turned out to be the perfect photo backdrop as well. Far Reaches is not offering this plant at the moment, so I am even more pleased that I splurged last year. 

Loree made me do it!

You know who I mean: Loree Bohl of Danger Garden. I don't know how many times she's shown her stunning Hellebore, 'Jade Tiger' (below). Every time I see her photos of this plant, I swoon. Then I say to myself, "I really need to get one of those!"

LOREE BOHL/DANGER GARDEN

But finding one for sale locally has not happened. Nor has it been easy to find them online. But this year I finally discovered them at Fraser's Thimble Farms. The price was pretty typical until I realized that not only was this nursery in Canada but it was in B.C. and not eastern Canada as I had been thinking.

It's bad enough that I order from nurseries in California and Washington state, but I decided I had to draw the line somewhere. So I gave up on my dream of 'Jade Tiger' in my garden. Until it unexpectedly appeared at White Flower Farm (below) under "new" plants that they'd just put online. 

No more oohing and aahing and searching. I plunked down my credit card and bought three of them. Whether I will keep them together to create a swath or spread them around the garden is still up in the air. But I am going to have fun playing with these beauties. Thanks, Loree. That GBBD photo made me finally do it!

Slim favorites

I get email updates from a lot of garden sites as I am sure many of you do as well. Thus I signed up to get a free catalog from Proven Winners. I am not crazy about their emphasis on what I consider overly-colorful foliage, but they do offer some nice plants. I trust their name and the quality of their plants, so I took a long look at their "Gardening Simplified" catalog when it came in the mail Monday.

But I didn't turn down a page corner marking something of interest to me until I was more than halfway through the book. I found two shrubs under space-saving hedges that caught my eye. Both are fastigiate, meaning nice and narrow and able to fit into tighter spots in the garden. 

This spring I am going to go looking for Taxus x media 'Stonehenge,' a shade-tolerant yew (above). Our Arborvita hedge (last May, below) is suffering from growing in too much shade and its multi-trunk form is getting severely battered from snow and miserable winters. I am thinking that perhaps I can replace a couple of the Arborvita or just start another hedge in front of it. We put in the original hedge to screen our neighbor's parking area where they keep a camper along with their cars.

They are fabulous neighbors but they need to shovel snow from their parking area too close to our hedge for its health — something we did not think about when we sited it. So a replacement hedge that is not as close to their parking spot — or maybe even a fence — needs to be something Mark and I look at this spring. 

On the same page as the Taxus 'Stonehenge' was this skinny Elderberry, Sambucus nigra 'Laced Up.' I moved Sambucus 'Black Lace' because it was too much of a spreader. But I would like a dark leaved shrub in that same spot to echo the Cotinus across the path. So this might nicely do the job. Then again, I saw this lovely treatment of 'Black Lace' Elderberry on Plant Lust. I don't know if it ever occurred to me before I saw this photo that this Elderberry could be a willowy, elegant plant.

It made me think twice. Perhaps what I really need to do is to prune out the horizontal growth and try to make the Elderberry I already have grow as vertically as I can make it. Or maybe I should  put my 'Black Lace' in a pot where I can shape it to my heart's content — and add 'Laced Up in my tight corner. 

A number of local nurseries carry Proven Winners plants and shrubs, so I can wait to decide what I want to do until I see the actual plants this Spring.