Each Little World

The alphabet garden

Roy Diblik of Northwind Perennial Farm in Wisconsin often talks about plants in terms of the alphabet. Though we have only 26 letters in our alphabet, he notes that we come up with an endless variety of words and ways to use them.

Thus 26 different plants would give you more than enough garden options for a lifetime. Since I keep a record of all of my plants on individual index cards, Diblik's concept sent me looking at my alphabetically-arranged list of perennials. Here's what I discovered:

• There are no plants under "F." Instead I use "F" for my many, many ferns. 
• I have a mere 3 plants whose name begins with "K" and only 2 under "M."
• I have no perennials whose names begin with "N" or "O" or "W, X, Y or Z."

As for the other letters of the alphabet, some have a number of different plants listed. Others are almost exclusively one group as the following letters show:

B is for Brunnera

E is for Epimediums

F is for ferns

G is for Geranium

H is for Hellebores and Hostas

I is for Iris

P is for Primulas and Peonies

T is for Tricyrtis and Trilliums

What this little exercise did was to let me quickly see what plants I favor over others. I was not at all surprised as I know these are my favorites. It does suggest, however, that I should use this list as a quick way to see if I have enough variety in terms of size, texture, season, color and all the characteristics that make for effective plant groupings. An easy task for a winter day that will help me when I hit local nurseries come spring.

A look back at 2022

As gardening years go, 2022 was an unusual one. We had three major garden tours: One each in June, July and August. Won't ever do that again. I felt like all I did was get the garden in shape for other people. It was fun on one level, but it also kept me from just hanging out in my own garden.

This coming garden season I will be alone in my garden as the city will be tearing up our street for a summer-long project. So I will get to see if I really prefer that.

Here's a more detailed look back at 2022. 

JANUARY

I ordered more plants on-lilne at the start of the year than ever before. I'm not sure if I've even got room for much else, but I am currently getting emails from nurseries left and right. 

FEBRUARY

When Mark built the fence across the back of our property, he encased the old cherry tree that was growing there. We should have taken it down but we were using any extra cash for garden design and plants in those days. The tree finally came out in February making it possible to see the spectacular Dawn Redwood in our neighbor's garden.

I love watching the arborists work in the most awkward situations. 

MARCH

The Witch Hazel put on a great show before any other plants were pushing up.

APRIL

April Food's Day gave us snow and then the temps started climbing quickly . . .

until it snowed again mid-month. Pretty common weather for us.

MAY 

For the first time in long time, I planted multiple containers. Some had shrubs waiting for a final home, some were filled with bulbs or houseplants like Begonias. A big Buttonbush shrub in a pot is temporarily filling the space where half of a large Pagoda dogwood died over the winter. 

JUNE

We drove out to Vermont at the beginning of the month for my sister's memorial celebration, which was a lovely event. I dug these Primroses out of her garden to add to my garden as a way to remember her. 

A week after we got home, Mark had surgery for his A-fib and the following week the Garden Blogger's Fling visited us. Lots of fun to see long time blogger friends and meet new ones.

We we so pleased that at least a couple of people actually went into the Tea House and sat down. (I downloaded this photo from the Fling site and don't have any id's.)

JULY

I took advantage of the city putting off tearing up our street to invite members of the Wisconsin Hardy Plant Society to stop by. This photo is by Steven King, the new president of the Wisconsin Daylily Society. I love the images he and other visitors took of the garden. So often standing in places where I had never thought to stop with my camera before. 

AUGUST

The first week of August I took advantage of early sales and bought even more plants. These are all from our local nursery, K & A.

SEPTEMBER

I spent a chunk of the month ripping out and redoing areas that had never quite been finished or had become problematic for many reasons. Two new shrubs were added in this narrow bed on the west side of the house. 

OCTOBER

We had spectacular fall color everywhere in the garden and it lasted and lasted. A memorable autumn. 

We took out another old and diseased evergreen tree (you can see the stump below), along with a Korean maple that had succumbed to verticillium wilt. Our arborists also did pruning on the trees that had suffered winter damage. 

NOVEMBER

All the problems I had with Typepad got me thinking about archival projects. I've kept years of big and little journals on the garden, trips, menus and parties. Now I've started making some physical books to remember the garden down the road when we're no longer living here.

DECEMBER

On December 9th we had such heavy wet snow that Mark went out to try to clean off the trees. I went out the following week to do the same after the next snow fall. On Thursday, Dec. 23, I noted that it was -7°F (and felt like -29°F, according to WeatherBug) at 9 p.m. The next Thursday, Dec. 29, the high was 50*F. which made the snow disappear overnight. Not really sure what to expect next.

Though we have a lot of winter left to get through here, I'm anxious to get out in the garden and hopeful that most of my new plantings will have successfully weathered our winter. 

New plants for 2022

Yes, I am ordering online again, long before local nurseries will open. It's possible I'll discover I would have been able to buy some of these locally, but I am not going to wait and see. I've ordered very few perennials; concentrating instead on ferns and Carexes that will be happy in my mostly shady garden and some shrubs that will help me cut down on maintenance. 

Here are a few of the plants I've ordered, though I know that ordering things early doesn't always mean you will get them. Fingers crossed.

. . .

Asplenium-scolopendrium-Furcata, a hart's tongue fern with lots of fascinating splits. I've had mixed luck with these but plan to add this to the two that have been in my garden a long time.

PLANT DELIGHTS NURSERY

I have had excellent luck with Dryopteris ferns and am always interested in adding more. Dryopteris-cambrensis, aka log fern, can supposedly deal with more heat and humidity than many ferns. It gets 30" x 3' which should be quite a sight eventually. 

PLANT DELIGHTS NURSERY

I've been successful with autumn ferns, making it sensible to try this one: Dryopteris erythrosora var. prolifica (prolific lacy autumn fern). PDN says it's drought tolerant and that the fronds emerge cinnamon red. 

PLANT DELIGHTS NURSERY

This drama queen looks too good to pass up, so I ordered three. Dryopteris wallichiana 'Jurassic Gold' hails from the Jurassic coast of England. Will it really look like this? I'll let you know. 

WHITE FLOWER FARM

I also ordered three of Dryopteris affinis crispa 'Congesta', a dwarf crisped golden-scaled male fern. I tend to have more large ferns and don't find many small ones that appeal to me. 

KEEPING IT GREEN NURSERY

I've had a lone Osmunda claytoniana, Interrupted fern, growing in the front garden for years. I decided it was time to give it some company, so I'm adding two more. It's a Wisconsin native. 

PRAIRIE NURSERY

I ordered five Carex exurbina, Ivory sedge, to put around the big tree off the deck. At 6"-1' x 1' they will be small enough that I can slip a shrublet in between, but big enough to make a statement. 

PRAIRIE NURSERY

I planted one Carex morrowii 'Silk Tassel' last summer and like it so much I'm adding five more this summer. At 1' x 2' they will make a lovely contrast on the Tea House berm with evergreen shrubs, blue Hostas and Hakonechloa grass. 

PLANT DELIGHTS NURSERY

I have been lusting for a ruby muhly grass for years and finally found one listed for Zone 5, Muhlenbergia reverchonii 'Undaunted'. Really looking forward to giving this a try.

WHITE FLOWER FARM

Before I ordered anything I determined where the plant would go. Then I made my usual id cards for each plant and noted its exact location on the back side of the card. At first I grouped the cards by the nursery where I ordered them.

Later I decided it made more sense to group them by the location where they would be planted. That way I can mentally go through what is already growing, what I'm adding and whether I need anything else.

Flower Factory Forever

First it was Roslyn Nursery, then Heronswood, then Seneca Hill Perennials — poof! Here for years and then suddenly gone. I still have plants from all of those memorable nurseries. But they were "paper" places; I read their catalogs but never shopped in person at any of them.

They were coastal destinations, not friends and neighbors like Nancy and David Nedveck, hands-on owners of The Flower Factory, down the road from Madison. You run into them at local garden events as here at Olbrich Botanical Gardens before we all went inside for a talk by Fergus Garrett of Great Dixter in the UK. 

The first plants that I bought for my very first garden, a rather simple affair located behind my apartment, were from the Flower Factory at Madison's original downtown Farmers Market. To a new gardener, stopping there was a weekly slice of heaven. These days I can't remember the last time I went downtown on a Saturday morning and socialized with David; now I always drive out to the nursery so I can bring home a heavy haul.

I usually go out to the nursery a couple of times a season. I always sit a minute in my car anticipating what fun I am going to have shopping here. 

Then I meander along the incredible flower border running the length of the adjacent hoop house. 

Next I turn around and walk over to take a closer look at the plantings across the parking lot. Just a glance at those bright pink Dianthus carthusianorum told me why mine are not as happy as these. Mine are in soil that's too rich and moist: A garden lesson learned and I haven't even left the parking lot! Hasn't that always been one of the benefits of buying locally? We can learn just by looking, let alone consulting Nancy or David and their staff. 

This little green-roofed building always makes me smile. 

I save the Hosta houses until last. That way I don't bang up those big leaves while I shop. 

I peek in but don't stop. (photo below from April, 2010)

If the weather looks threatening, I wear my hooded rain jacket leaving the umbrellas for those who need them! I usually look like a gardener when I go to FF: boots, jeans and an old T-shirt, gloves, a hat. Now and then people have asked me for help because I looked like I must work there.  

Most of these photos are from 2016/17 and don't begin to show the kinds of container plantings and inspirational displays that abound at Flower Factory these days. I've been seduced more than once by plants that were unfamiliar or just so beautifully grouped into a display that I had to take some home with me. 

Even though I always bring my FF catalog and have a specific plant shopping list in hand, I don't think I have ever managed to get away without at least one impulse buy. 

I started filling an index card with relevant information (including source) for each plant I purchase beginning in the late 1980s and still do so. Thus I know I bought my first Japanese painted fern at FF in 1989; my first Toad lilies in 1996 and Geranium macrrohrizum in 1998. These are stalwarts in my garden.

More recently I started taking a photo of my plant purchases before I leave the Flower Factory or as soon as I get home. It's a great visual record of what I bought when.

These wagon loads are from early spring, 2010.

August, 2016

August, 2017

June, 2019

September, 2019

I would not be the gardener I am nor have the garden I do if not for Nancy and David. The incredible variety of plants they offer each year (2,500 in 2019) is only one small part of what they've given us. On-the-spot plant identification and advice no matter when or where I run into them. Presentations to garden groups large and small. Their catalog has a page of general gardening information in the back and they provide an entire alphabet list of uses for their perennials ranging from drought and salt tolerance to plants that like it wet or are fragrant and on and on. 

In my gardening heart-of-hearts, I've known that one of these days David and Nancy would retire. Why wouldn't they? Lots of us did it years ago, which is why we have all this time to garden. Running a nursery on the scale and complexity of Flower Factory is a job that never stops and rarely slows down. It is a business that is subject to the vagaries of weather and the whims of the gardening world. Those of us who live in Dane Country and the Upper Midwest have been luckier than most American gardeners to have such a rich source of plants and pleasant nursery folks right on our doorstep. Best wishes to David and Nancy as they take this next step on their journey.

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.

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. 

Prepping for a pair of workshops

I'm presenting a pair of workshops Saturday on "Recording your Garden." Here's the description: 

"When it comes to your garden, you are the expert; the only person who has been there from the beginning. But memory is an unreliable way to keep track of your plants and all your work, the constant changes you see, the weather and whatnot. Linda Brazill has been journaling about her garden and other subjects for many years. She’ll share ideas and her inspirations about the myriad ways you can record and interact with your garden on this deeper level. Mainly print, some digital but not spreadsheets."

My offering is part of on-going series of programs given by members of the Wisconsin Hardy Plant Society and offered mostly free to members. I'm doing mine at my home and limited the group size to eight people counting me. I wanted to do something where we could really interact, talk and share ideas and reflections.

I mention all this because I am going to stay off the computer while I get everything ready today and tomorrow. See you all on Monday!

A crazy gardening year

Mark recently ran into a gardening friend of mine who asked him if I thought it had been a crazy gardening year. "Oh, Linda thinks every year is a crazy gardening year," was his reply. When he told me this I got rather annoyed until I realized he might be right. It seems like every gardener I know in person — or in the blogging world — is fixated on weather and climate more and more. How can we not be when the weather we were used to and designed our gardens for is fluctuating in ways we've rarely experienced in the past. 

This year we lost a lot of trees, shrubs and perennials that were anywhere from a year to 15 years old from a cold winter with no snow until too late to help. Then the cold lingered and we had our biggest snowstorm of the season on April 18th!

Then there was the rain. The official count is a good 10 inches of precipitation above  normal for the year — and they measure it at a location that did not get the 10+ inches that our side of town received in August. So who knows how much my garden actually got? And now we are having days where the high temperatures is anywhere from 10 to 20 degrees below normal. 

In 2017 I was complaining about above average rainfall and rain events until it suddenly stopped at the end of the summer and we had a dry and extremely hot autumn. 2016 was a year to remember for all the right reasons. Mark and I both tried to enjoy beautiful days with just the right amount of heat, sun and rain — knowing it might be a long time before we would again experience such a year. Just how long is anyone's guess.

How quickly we forget . . .

There are certain weather-related events that I won't ever forget:

• The drought of 1988 when I had just started to garden and to give the the weather my full attention. 
• Or Madison's 100 inches of snow the winter of 2007/08 (below)

• Or the year the big Austrian pine twisted in a winter storm and came down on Mark's beautiful fence without damaging it all. 

• This will be the year when we got 10+ inches of rain in one day and 14 inches in a month. 

While these numbers are memorable I'd already forgotten that it rained to a greater or lesser degree on 23 out of 29 days in May of 2017.

These stats seem to suggest that when it rains it's heavier and more frequent. Whether these numbers are just fluke occurrences or the harbingers of climate change, only time will tell — a very long time. But these numbers also suggest that I need to pay more attention to what's happening in my own back yard and to keep better records of these weather events than just random blog entries. 

October's rainfall total as of Monday, Oct. 8th, 2018: 4.46 inches (11.32 cm.) — or a month's typical amount in a matter of days. At the moment, this seems to be our new normal. I'm worried that the new plants I put in the garden this fall may rot before they've had a chance to root.  

Weather stats

I don't know any gardeners who aren't fanatical about the weather. We're always going on about something. But now and then the weather is perfect: Numerous times during 2015 Mark and I stopped to say how wonderful the weather was. From start to finish it was a memorable year for all the best reasons. It looks like 2018 will be memorable for all the wrong reasons. 

Given our record-breaking "rain bomb" on August 20th, I decided to look in my garden journal to see just what kind of rain we've had this summer. I put our rain gauge out at the beginning of April so that's when my count begins. Typically the garden is best if it gets one inch (2.54 cm.) of rain per week. These are our monthly totals with some commentary.

April: 7.2"  That amount fell on one day.

May: 9.09" with 3.21" falling in one week

June: 9.54" Three big rain storms in June with 2.10" falling on a Sunday followed by 4.15" at the end of the week with hail and high winds. 

July: 3.37" but 2.07" of this was in the first few days of the month, making the rest of the July dry enough I had to water.

August: 14.39" but 10" inches of that occurred in 24 hours or slightly less. 

Rainfall is measured officially at the airport on the other side of town from our house. Their August total is 10.40" compared to a normal August amount of 4.27". 

So far this year Madison has officially had 36.03" of rain compared to a norm of 24.82". 

The total at our house is 42.16". So we got 6+ inches more than the official total so far this year, or 17" more than is typical by this time of year. Got all that?!

Though the westside of Madison where we live got the big August 20th rain, it is the east side of our city that is having flood problems due to lake levels. Some of the problem can be linked to the fact that folks who live on the lakes want artificially high water for their docks and boating, according to a recent article from the UW's Limnology Lab.  

Statewide, the bigger issue is that our governor has gutted the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources of both its power and its scientists and environmentalists. That has given the Republican-controlled state legislature the ability to remove wetland protection from 100,000 acres as well as the Foxconn construction site by Lake Michigan, according to Jim Rowan's blog, The Political Environment.