Each Little World

WHPS inspiration

One of the benefits of membership in the Wisconsin Hardy Plant Society is the chance to tour members' garden. I visited Alice Page's westside garden last month. I saw lots to admire in her garden but nothing apropos for my garden — until I was clearing out this space where a large shrub had died. Since the location is right as you enter the back garden, it really needed attention. As I stared at the fence I suddenly remembered how I'd loved the path at Alice's garden awash in Cimicifuga and Thalictrum. I decided to use Cimicifuga racemosa 'Brunette' as the backbone of my design to get a similar frothy, ferny feel. 

I have this Cimicifuga growing all over my garden as you can see in the image below; it allowed me to divide a few of them to come up with a row of five plants of varying sizes to get this new bed started.

I added a giant Japanese painted fern 'Godzilla' (center front in the first image) which needed to be moved from its current location anyway. It strikes me as a perfect complement to the Cimicifugas. The 'Godzilla' in the garden area below is starting to mature with vertical fronds that are almost 3 feet tall. It gives you an idea of how nicely the other one will fill in the space in front of the Cimicifugas. 

I already had this little treasure from Far Reaches Farm growing nearby in a holding bed, so I just "slid" it over to add to the mix. It's a Chinese false Solomon's Seal (Maianthemum henryi) that I planted late last autumn and have kept caged to save it from the rabbits. 

This is what it will look like (below) when it gets to its mature size of 36 inches. Plus it's fragrant! It's listed as needing "shade to part shade" but I've put it in a spot that  will get some sun. All of the plants here are shade plants, but I know from experience that my best Cimicifugas and painted ferns all get some sun. 

Far Reaches Farm

I've tried to grow this Umbrella Leaf (Diphylleia cymosa) more than once with little success. I've had it in moist and dry shade but nary a flower. So I dug out both clumps and added them to the left of the painted fern in the first photo. 

Far Reaches Farm

This is also supposed to get about 3 feet tall, with white flowers and large leaves that look a bit like giant Jeffersonia or Podophyllum, which is clear to see in the image below from Far Reaches Farm website. 

These incredible blue berries that are the real reason to grow this plant. I've never managed to get any flowers on either of my Diphylleias, let alone berries. But I'm hopeful that a little more sun is the answer.

Great Plant Picks Photo

While I wait for things to grow and fill in, I am going to add some of this Tiarella 'Running Tapestry' as a ground cover to tie everything together.

This bed does not look like much at the moment but I'm hoping it will begin to make a statement by next year. I am pleased with it on two counts:

First, that I got the inspiration in a garden not far from my own;

Second, that I got all the plants by shopping my own garden. This year I've been able to refine a number of sparse areas with large divisions from elsewhere in the garden. I love being able to instantly fill in an area without having to shop anywhere but in my own garden. 

Small garden details

The Wisconsin Hardy Plant Society has a FB page for members. We typically post photos of our gardens, ask for design help or aid to id plants and weeds. We also have the ability via official group email to let everyone know when members open their gardens for an evening. We have scheduledl open garden events but these are just spontaneous moments when a gardener thinks their garden has something worth sharing. 

This was a small back garden I visited in early spring with a wood fence/gate separating the garden from the drive and garage. I liked the design that made the area private but let you look out when you were standing. 

But the best part was this little fountain on the other side of that short wall, right outside the back door to the house. Add rocks and ferns and you have a perfect garden in a very tiny space. 

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. 

Fern fronds unfolding

There is so much happening in the garden at the moment that it is hard to keep up with the changes from hour to hour let alone overnight. Among the best sights are the ferns making their first appearance.

Polystichum retrospaleaceum 

I planted three of these in 2017 and the following hard winter killed off one of them. But the other two look like they are settling in for the long haul

If you did not know this was how a Cinnamon fern (Osmundastrum cinnamomeum) looks at it emerges, you might think it was a fungal growth and pull it out of the ground. 

Dryopteris crassirhizoma is so brown and fuzzy along its stipe that it looks like its draped in fur. 

This fern's fronds at this stage are so big and flat and hairy they look like animal paws to me. 

The fernery: Vases and pots on Monday

A fernery is a specialized garden where one grows and displays ferns. My garden is filled with ferns but they are scattered hither and yon, so it doesn't really fit that definition.

For a long time I've though about making an indoor fernery where the plants would grow inside a terrarium so it is easy to keep them moist and meet any other conditions. But even if I had a terrarium I don't really have a good spot to put it. Lack of the proper location is the reason I don't do houseplants in general. But a year ago, just before Christmas 2017, I decided to buy a big Boston fern for the holidays instead of a Poinsettia. It's doing nicely a year later. It sits atop a plant/sculpture stand in front of our south-facing window wall. But a translucent curtain keeps it from getting too much light or cold air. It gets watered once a week on Sunday afternoon. 

While grocery shopping on a warmish day last month, I spied a pair of ferns too lovely to resist. The pair of them cost less than a bouquet of cut flowers and have held up quite well — once I realized how often their tiny pots needed to be watered. They should be re-potted but that means a trip to a local nursery and our wintry weather has limited my driving. So they will remain in their cramped containers a while longer.

I brought one of them out into the living room for enough light to take a photo. Otherwise they've been happily living in my bathroom where the light and moisture level seem jut right. And I can easily water them daily which is what I've discovered they need due to their tiny containers. I've been surprised to discover they are putting out new fronds which are a pleasure to watch as they grow upward and outward in fascinating twists and turns. 

A day or so before my January 19th workshop, I ran out into the garden knowing that I should be able to find a bit of greenery to bring indoors before the snowstorm that was forecast arrived. I cut a leaf from a Hellebore that is one the plant put out last spring. And a fern frond, most likely from the autumn fern, Dryopteris 'Brilliance.' 

The water in this container has evaporated and both plants are looking a little worse for wear. But it is not often that I can bring foliage from my garden indoors in January so it will have to get a lot more bedraggled than this before I am ready to be rid of it!

To see what other gardeners are able to bring indoors for a vase this week, visit Cathy at Rambling in the Garden who hosts this much-loved and much-visited Monday meme!

November beauties

I posted photos of some of these same plants on November first and they were still looking great this weekend. That's after a lot of cold daytime weather, with highs often ten degrees below normal and overnight lows down in the teens. We even had a little snow. But a couple of days that hit 40 degrees F. perked anything right back up that had been starting to languish. 

Rosemary at the top of the wall on the north side of the house.

This Rhododendron yakushimanum 'Yaku Angel' is loaded with buds, the most this shrub has ever had so I am pretty excited. 

This Helleborus niger typically blooms at Thanksgiving, but I think it is too cold for these flowers to actually open up this year. 

The entry for November 25th in my "Year in the Garden" calendar, said that this fern — Dryopteris erythorsora — is a "wintergreen Japanese shield fern." Here it is known as an autumn fern. The idea that there are summergreen and wintergreen ferns is a new one to me. I am guessing that is not the case in Wisconsin, though apparently that is how ferns are regarded in the U.K. 

Arum italicum "Ghost' is always looking its best just before snow arrives. It amazes me to see this come up as the weather cools but then it lasts and lasts. A rare treat for a gardener in my climate and zone.

Ferns for fall

My neighbor has a swath of fiddlehead ferns that always look stunning in the spring when they emerge. But let a whiff of cold air touch them in the fall and they turn brown and crumple over in a minute. But there are an amazing number of ferns that can make it through light frosts and some that will look good as the snow melts off of them at the end of winter. Autumn fern (Dryopteris erythrosora), Christmas fern (Polystichum acrostichoides) and Hart's Tongue fern (Asplenium scolopendrium) are all still looking quite good. 

The group below includes Dryopteris crassirhizoma on the left and Leatherwood fern (Dryopteris marginalia) on the right.  These are both growing in dry shade under a Scot's pine.

Leatherwood in another part of the garden

This is one of the first ferns I planted in the late 1990s but I am not sure what it is: Beech fern, Broad buckler fern or perhaps NY fern. These days I try to keep better records of what I've planted where. This grows outward in such a way that I have cut chunks off of it with no harm. It is a good 3 feet tall and stunning. Nothing seems to bother it. 

Look (between those two tree trunks on the right) at the statement the above fern makes when perennials all around it are already done for the season. All of the other greens in this view are evergreen shrubs like yew and box.

Adiantum venustum with Carex 'Bowles' Golden'. So delicate looking and so tough.

The Dryopteris and Polystichum fern families have lots of different varieties and are a good place to look for ferns that can stand up to rougher weather. 

IVOM: Frost warnings

We had our first frost warning of the season Friday night. The temps got colder than I thought they would here in our urban garden. We went down to 34 degrees F. (1.11 C.), just two degrees above freezing. But I decided I was not going to take a chance that all my late bloomers would come through unscathed. I went out Friday afternoon to cut the first toad lilies (Tricyrtis) that had opened.

I divided and moved my clump of this toad lily — Tricyrtis hirta 'Lemon Twist' — in August. This variety only gets about 18 inches tall (45.72 cm.), has large yellow flowers and gray dots on the leaves. But as a result of moving it, I am not getting many flowers. I am, however, finding scorched leaves. Thus another move is probably on the list of early spring tasks. I added a few fronds of Adiantum venustum and a sprig of the last Thalictrum 'Splendide' flowers. 

The Thalictrum sprig started out in this arrangement of Tricyrtis and Cimicifuga. I have a number of clumps of Cimicifuga; all of them dark-leaved varieties as each newer and darker variety was introduced. But for this bouquet, I stripped off all the chocolate-colored leaves.   

Tricyrtis myazaki grows in quite a horizontal fashion. They are planted under a pine tree and growing out over our stream. Both conditions make them hard to get at for cutting but they always are the first group to come into flower. After I took these photos I decided I did not like that little spring of Thalictrum, so I pulled it out and added it to the yellow toad lily vase. 

As I was wandering the garden to see what was in bloom to cut for a Monday bouquet before this potential frost, I came across this stem of Epimedium 'Waterfall' foliage. 

The striking red veins on the yellow leaves seemed like the perfect partner for the drying flowers of Sedum 'Matrona.'

To see what other gardeners have gathered to put in a vase today, visit Cathy of Rambling in the Garden who hosts this Monday meme.

Not quite wordless Wednesday

One of my favorite groupings in the garden and one that looks as cool and refreshing in August as it does in the spring: Epimedium x youngianum 'Niveum,' Adiantum Venustrum and Carex elata 'Bowles Golden.'

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.