Each Little World

Pretty in pink

Back in the 1960s my paternal grandparents had an aluminum Christmas tree with a gizmo that bathed it in changing colors. All of us grandkids were struck with the shock of the new, though I never really warmed to it. But last year in December, after my tree was up and decorated, I stumbled across my equally glitzy dream tree. 

If you asked me, I never would have said I was searching for a pink tree made of twisted metallic paper (as near as I can tell). But at only about 4 feet tall, it was the right size to put on the drop leaf table in the red room. 

It is way too intrusive a color and material to be at home in any other room in the house. The red walls in this room, however, are the perfect backdrop and actually seem to tone the color down a bit. 

I store all my Christmas ornaments in two big cardboard boxes that each have three trays divided into many small sections to keep all these precious pieces of glass from rolling around and knocking into each other. One bin has all the green/blue/silver objects and the other holds red/pink/purple/gold colored decorations. So it was easy to match my ornaments to the color of my new tree. 

Among my early personal splurges is the Christopher Radko quirky, slightly creepy face on the left above. I love Radko's early ornaments which were strange and unusual compared to his much larger, later pieces that focused more on traditional Christmas motifs.

I've always gravitated to pink and red ornaments so it was no problem to decorate this tree, though I did add a few new things like the cherry red pine cone or the pink sphere with blue daisies. I can't believe how much I am enjoying this silly pink tree. And Mark loves the fact that it is not out in the living room staring him in the face!

In a vase on Monday: Early August

Our bookclub held its monthly meeting at our house yesterday morning, so I put together this trio of vases Saturday afternoon. I tend to think of my late summer garden as mostly green so I was surprised at how much color I discovered as I walked around, clippers in hand.

I designed this to be a small but colorful display for the coffee table. Thus Sunday morning, all six of us were clustered around said coffee table arrayed on the couch and assorted comfy chairs. The table gave all of us a convenient place to set our books and cups and plates of food. But a glass table top is not the best place to photograph anything, so I move the flowers to a different spot to snap this photo. 

Unknown Heuchera flowers with a leaf from Heuchera 'Lava Lamp' (left), Black Beauty lily with a leaf from Heuchera 'Gingerale' and a bud from Hemerocallis 'Little Grapette' that opening perfectly overnight and a few Astrantia flowers barely visible behind it. To see what other gardeners put in a vase today, visit Cathy at Rambling in the Garden who hosts this marvelous Monday meme.

A post of its own

Those of you who grow all those dramatic Chinese mayapples are used to the unusual foliage and gorgeous flowers these plants are known for. Not me. I planted Podophyllum 'Spotty Dotty' in 2016 and was worried that it might not return after our bad winter.

Not only did it reappear, but it's flowering as well! I really thought the plant would have to be a bit older before it started producing blooms.

These flower buds really don't give you a clue as to the size, color and all-out drama of the flowers. Despite the fact that they dangle below the leaves they are visible even if you're just glancing at the plant as you walk by — which is how I discovered it was flowering!

Even though tomorrow is Garden Bloggers Bloom Day, I decided Dotty deserved her own moment in the spotlight.

Double duty decor

Since I still had my bowl of red pears and pomegranates from Christmas on display in the red room, I decided to recycle them into a Valentine's arrangement. I brought them out to the dinner table and added a runner that was bright but not meant for any holiday or season. Then I twirled a glittery vine decked in shiny hearts around the bowl. Voila!

Sometimes I've wrapped this bit of Valentine's decor around my Xmas wreath at the front door. I've had it so long that hearts keep dropping off ever time I unroll it. One of these years it will be heartless and that will be the end of my Valentine's decor.

More foraged greens

I often cut a few branches of Arborvitae for holiday arrangements but I don't take winter prunings from any of my other trees or shrubs. So it was especially nice to be able to forage an assortment of greenery from the pile at the curb in my neighborhood. I curved the longer branches around this ceramic plate next to the front door. It is under the roof overhang and needed a little sparkle to make it more visible, so I added a beaded ornament.  

Then I clipped more branches to various lengths in order to make a display for the front hall in my one gallon red Haws watering. 

 The berried and variegated stems were additions from the grocery store. It looked a little too somber with just greens.

Red room holiday decor

I adore my red room but it is impossible to take good photos in there. Too dark and too much intense color. But at least these images will let me remember how I decorated this space this year. I stopped at one of our longtime local florists early in the month and found this big blue and white vase on sale for half price. 

I bought some curly orange willow branches and berried Eucalyptus but with a container this big it needed more. So I foraged three kinds of evergreens — white pine, cedar and spruce — that were tree and shrub trimmings stacked up by the curb waiting for city crews to dispose of them. After driving by them of a couple of days, I stopped with my pruners, garden gloves and garbage bags and brought home a nice assortment of greens. The next morning I drove by and discovered the street crews had done their job and they were all gone!

We moved our Thai Spirit House back into the red room from the library. It's home to Buddha, studio gods and assorted creatures.

I decorated the top of the Spirit House with bags made of cactus fiber and a Japanese one made out of a variety of fabrics.

There's an East Indian basket, Leslee Nelson's fabulous crocheted radish, and contemporary felt veggies and toys.

I added a string of lights too make the whole arrangement a little more visible and playful. Most of these items will stay on display here after the holidays, though I probably will remove the lights.

The Moss Garden at this particular moment

2017

Once we made the decision to move the bench to the moss garden with a wide path approaching it, that arrangement clearly divided the space into a couple of large beds that swept around the seat. I decided that I would just fill in the space with plants I already had and that would be that. So I dug up Japanese painted ferns, candelabra primroses and Hostas and began to fill in the space. The white buckets indicate the locations for future Yew balls. We already had one planted under the Carolina Sweetshrub by the fence, so adding four more would make a nice uneven number.

I also added a young Korean maple and two boxwood seedlings, all of which had been growing in pots around the garden. The boxwoods would also eventually be trimmed into balls. Everything's caged to keep the rabbits away now and during the coming winter. 

But hardly had the plants in the first picture begun to settle in when I decided it was too much color and pattern. That probably sounds crazy but the old moss garden was a calm green moment amidst everything else that was happening in the garden nearby. I wanted that green quiet feeling again. So on my recent trip to the Flower Factory I bought 8 solid green Hakonechloa macra plants to use instead of painted ferns and Hostas. This spot is fairly dry and the Hakonechloa will do better here than the painted ferns anyway. 

Mark and I then revisited our early idea of a long "wave' of Yews — rather than a mere four — that would be pruned into balls until they start melding into each other a number of years down the road. That would lower maintenance since they only need clipping once a year. After calling a few local nurseries we discovered Winterland Nursery still had what we wanted despite it being almost Labor Day. 

Luckily we had a planting plan otherwise it would have been easy to be seduced by Winterland's fields of trees and shrubs. 

We bought ten Taxus x media 'Tauntonii' which we've used elsewhere in the garden. Hopefully these will do as well as the others we've planted over the years. Winterland Nursery was bought out by McKay Nursery and they now offer a one year guarantee which is a valuable added protection to pricey plants like these. 

Mark unloaded the heavy pots and brought them to where we wanted to plant them via multiple wheelbarrow trips. We spent a fair amount of time moving them around to determine the best placement. Then it came time to plant them. Out came all the necessary tools. Mark started to dig the first hole to see how bad the roots from nearby trees might be and to see what the soil was like. He gave me some tips and said to call him if I need help.

I didn't really need help. I just had to do it my way with my tools. I knew it would take me twice as long as it would if Mark did it, but I wanted to do it right and also not hurt myself. That meant I did not use Mark's big shovel in the foreground or the heavy duty orange-painted spud. They were so heavy to lift I didn't have enough strength left for leverage!

I used the cardboard template to cut the diameter of the planting hole and the other tools as needed. Luckily I only had to use the saw on a few big roots; my Felcos worked for the rest. I planted two yews last Wednesday, three on Friday, three on Sunday and got the final two in the ground on Labor Day. I've got a pile of empty pots, a bucket of roots and a pile of dirt to use elsewhere in the garden. I'm sore, but not incapacitated, and very proud of myself. 

 Alas, it doesn't look like much given all my hard work. You get a better sense of how this will look from the shaggy Yew ball at the rear which has been in the ground a few years and thus makes a bit more of a statement.

This is the swath of Yew and Box balls that we planted a number of years ago and is what we're aiming for in the former moss garden as well. The individual plants are just beginning to touch each other, so Mark can soon start pruning them into a meandering cloud. These shrubs are almost 4' across and about 3' high.

Along with the Hakonechloa, I'm planting maidenhair ferns and candelabra primroses.  All are pest and maintenance free, other than cutting them down in the spring before they start to regrow. The primroses will provide a burst of red and then everything will revert to green again. Podphyllum 'Spotty Dotty', a Rodgersia and a red-flowered Trillium are planted around the apple tree to add some contrast to the ferns and forest grass that will eventually surround them. 

I'm hoping I can steal enough Hakonechloa and Maidenhair ferns from elsewhere in the garden to get this area off to a good start during this cooler weather we're currently having. Then I have to get back to the Sacred Grove where I've been re-doing a chunk of that area as well.

Trilliums

If it's been a good spring for Epimediums, it's been equally good for Trilliums — at least in my garden. This is an old clump of Trillium sessile photographed on a cold and cloudy day (April 26th).

Here's the same group this week surrounded by Primula japonica 'Postford White'.  This particular Trillium is one of the largest I've ever seen in my garden. 

It measures about ten inches across and is a stunner. 

This Trillium recurvatum (at least I think that's what this one is!) has seeded itself around the garden: in sun and shade, in pebbles and soil of all types.

Though most gardeners think of Trilliums as native woodland plants, I think they are as sophisticated looking as many of our highly cultivated and hybridized garden plants. What could be lovelier than this clump of Trillium flexipes? 

Trillium albidum produced four flowers after only being planted last year. That's pretty dramatic growth for a Trillium.

When we moved into our house we discovered a Trillium grandiflorum plant already growing here. For years I was afraid to touch it until Gene Bush of Munchkin Nursery told the WHPS that Trilliums will die out if you don't periodically divide them. So I finally pared away some pieces which have grown into nice plants themselves as you can see from the photo below.

In fact this Trillium is so happy that it self seeded into the dry stream bed in soil that has been compacted by big equipment and big feet for many years. It's the last place I would have ever planted one and it came back this year after I forgot to dig it out and move it last year.

Big mama is trying to open if the sun would come out for more than a few hours. This original Trillium grandiflorum is surrounded by white Dodecatheon which are almost ready to bloom as well. 

My patch of Trillium luteum is increasing very slowly. This one is near a path that I traverse almost daily so I am more aware of the speed with which it's growing than most of my other Trilliums which require a special trip out into the garden to see them. I guess I can't really complain given how many Trillium varieties I'm growing with no real problems. I give all the credit to my microclimate rather than this gardener's expertise.

The red door

xx

Holiday wreaths

As I was driving home from somewhere the other day I noticed someone had pruned a Peegee Hydrangea and there was a huge pile of clippings with big, blowsy bunches of brown flowers by the curb. I almost stopped the car to grab some for bouquets and wreaths, but I didn't really have a specific idea in mind and so I passed the pile by. I rarely create wreaths from scratch, so I felt like I would need a little help to get me started if I wanted to try making one this year.

A couple of days later Avant Gardens in MA put up a nice blog post about making wreaths with close-up images of all the types of material you might use as well as tips on construction and how to keep it looking good.

If you are looking for wreath ideas, here are a few that I've saved for inspiration over the years because they relied on only one or two items to make a statement. At this increasingly busy season, I love finding simple solutions like these.

In the end I went even more minimalist than these wreaths. For years we've been buying our evergreen wreath from our nephew but he's all done with that now. So I decided to leave Mark Skudlarek's ceramic platter by the front door as a wreath stand-in. Then I added a little color with red berries to match the red ribbons on the bench by the entrance. Pretty much a repeat of last year, which begs the question of why I continue to collect images of wreaths and fancifully decorated holiday doors.