Each Little World

Daylily season

If my Martagon lilies were a disappointment this year, the daylilies are not. Then again, in the Upper Midwest daylilies are stalwarts that never disappoint the gardener. 

Hemerocallis 'Little Rainbow'

I bought H. 'Petite Sioux' in 1990 at the local Daylily Society's annual sale when I was a member. I've never seen it offered anywhere else in all these years. My first garden was small, so I became enamored of these more petite varies. Still love them.

H. 'Red Magic' 

This pairing enhances the tones of the Tea House and, since they are smaller flowers and plants overall, they don't overwhelm Mark Skudlarek's big pot. 

Wordless Wednesday

Home through the Hasselblad

Mark has spent his time during the past four months photographing with a variety of cameras: Digital, Pinhole and large format. Over the weekend, a friend loaned him a medium format Hasselblad camera. He used it to take these photos of our garden after spending time reading the manual, a big hardcover book! I love the mysterious, almost haunting quality of the images this film camera produced.

Waiting for some flowers

The garden is filled with budding stems but few flowers at the moment. Deinthe cerulea is looking the best it ever has. It finally is of a size to make a visual impact even before it blooms. 

Lake Forest: An estate garden

I was one of a busload of gardeners from the Wisconsin Hardy Plant Society who visited this estate garden last summer on a very hot, very sunny day. I am including a few images you've already seen of the entrance courtyard and the Japanese Tea House to put the entire property in context.

Our bus dropped us off at the street end of this expansive driveway. We turned left at the garage  . . .

and walked along a covered portico to enter the garden. That sliding shoji-style door on the right was a restroom that the hosts opened for us. You can imagine how thankful and surprised we were at this unexpected gesture. 

We continued along the wooden walkway, getting enticing glimpses of what awaited us.

We turned left at the end of the walkway where it skirted the house before opening into the garden. 

This large piece of sculptural wood marked the corner. 

This was the view as we left the covered walkway.

This stream was on the other side of the shrubs that edged the walkway. 

It curved out into this water feature. 

You could walk up this slope using the rocks as stepping stones between these beautiful swaths of weeping Blue Spruce. 

The folks walking through this shady spot give you a sense of the size of this specimen rock. 

A cloudy and misty day must make these lichens glow. 

This garden was big enough to include large sculptures and to let you enjoy them in long views as well as close-up. 

The Tea House was in this woodsy area on the far side of the garden from the house as well. 

This is the view along the side of the house and garage where we entered the garden — but looking in the opposite direction. 

This little path took you to the back side of the water feature. 

Both ends of this long walkway had unusual natural sculptures.

A beautiful garden, beautifully maintained. 

Garden visits: Ken and Jean Nordlund

Every time I've visited the Nordlund's garden, it is more lovely than the last. Ken says that he couldn't do much more than "distinguish a petunia from a pine tree" when he and Jean moved to this house in 1989. Even a brief glance at this front garden indicates this is the home of a consummate plants person. Front to back and side to side, this is a swoon-worthy garden. 

Heading around the garage (to the left in the above photo) is this walkway with a tall hedge creating a narrow garden room.

The garage wall on the right holds attractive trellises for clematis to scramble over. 

This is the view as you walk out into the gardens behind the house: big trees, hedges and deep dramatic beds of plants and grasses.  

As someone who loves a tightly clipped hedge, I am in awe of this sweep of yew setting off a space for entertaining right in the midst of the garden. 

This garden has a number of Carexs as well as grasses. 

The fenced area in the center back of the view below is the vegetable garden. 

A dairy state icon guards the veggies.

Continuing towards the back left side of the garden leads you to an entirely unexpected view. 

From the street, it is not obvious that the Nordlund's home and those of their neighbors circle a hidden park.

Ken and his neighbors are working on a prairie landscape where his and other properties adjoin this community space. 

Back in the main garden, we are now looking at the beds that border the right side of the property. If you need to reorient yourself, go back to the 3rd or 7th images which show wide views. 

Another garden visitor provides a sense of the scale of some of the hedges and plants. These borders are deep enough that that have paths running through the middle of them. 

Whether you look up . . .

or down, there is something wonderful to see.

All good things must come to an end. 

i'm already looking forward to this year's tours of gardens of members of the Wisconsin Hardy Plant Society.

Not just Hellebores

I love Hellebores and have them spread throughout my garden. If you grow them, then you know they only have one downside — and down it is. Their lovely flowers face downwards meaning it is almost impossible to see them without bending over yourself or turning the flowers upward with your hand. Somehow I've managed to plant two summer flowers that do the same thing. 

This is Deinanthe caerula which I've been growing about ten years. It is a small clump former that is almost shrubby. And yes, it's caged because it is rabbit candy.

It is sometimes called "False Hydrangea". You can see where it got that name: from its large rugose leaves that look very like those of a Hydrangea.

The pale, waxy lilac blue flowers are exquisite.

Alas, without lifting them upward they don't look like much and are easy to ignore. This was blooming around July 20th.

My other downward summer bloomer is Anemonopsis macrophylla, a Japanese aristocrat of the woodland. Its foliage was describe in the catalog as "cimicifuga-like," but I think it looks more like Astrantia.

This also has rather waxy blooms but even more pale colored than the Deinanthe. 

When you see the inside of the bloom is really looks waxy; almost to the point of looking artificial. We've had a little over two inches of rain since early Sunday and this flower is showing the effect of getting pounded by the weather. 

'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. 

Lilies and daylilies

It's high summer and the garden is bursting with bright colors and towering plants. The view out the living room windows is all green, but take a short walk up to the Sacred Grove and the scene is entirely different. Up there, I've got deep dark red Lilium asiaticum landini and bright yellow Lilium leichtlini in one bed. Across the path are three types of orange lilies and assorted daylilies.

I planted Lilium henryii in memory of my late father-in-law, Henry. It is always at least 6' tall if not a bit higher.  

Lilium lancifollium flore pleno is the double form of the tiger lily. Lilium superb, the Turk's Cap lily, is just about to bloom. Though all three lilies in this bed are orange, the tones are  markedly different tones of that color. 

Hemorcallis 'Lady Inora' shares the bed with the orange lilies. 

Tall spikes of Thalictrums lighten the look of the lilies' heavy flower heads.

Across the path is Lilium leichtlini. I love the delicate blush of red on the backs of the flowers. I'd like to get more of this bulb but haven't seen it offered recently.

I seem to have lost the name of this daylily, but based on its markings I think it is one of Pauline Henry's Siloam varieties. Lovely pale yellow with a purple throat.

The dark red Lilium landini (center) are so dark you can barely see them in this photo. That's Hemerocallis 'Little Grapette' in the foreground with Ligularia 'The Rocket' adding more yellow. 

Around the corner by the Tea House side of the above bed are red daylilies: H. 'Little Red Warbler' on the left and H. 'Petite Sioux' on the right. 

At the top of the stairs out front is Hemerocallis 'Early Bird Cardinal' backed by Berberis 'Orange Rocket'.

If you asked me if I had any bright summer flowers in the garden, I'd say that I have very few. But walking around with a camera suggests I haven't a clue about what I've been planting the last few years!

Summer recipes

I've been taking advantage of the summer weather to to try out new recipes, including a few from "Smitten Kitchen Every Day," the latest cookbook by Deb Perelman, of Smitten Kitchen blog fame. These days I am usually thinning cookbooks from my bookshelves but leafing through the pages of this one in A Room of One's Own bookstore, I found recipe after recipe that I wanted to try. 

Then the New York times published an interesting sounding recipe for marinated and grilled flank steak, one of my favorite meals. I bought fresh dill at the Farmers' Market for another recipe but used it first with Alliums for a tabletop bouquet. 

This is Smitten Kitchen's "potato and asparagus gribiche" which became my new favorite potato salad at first bite. The gribiche dressing (with the spoon, below) of mustard, hard boiled eggs, capers and cornichons may not be typical but I found it perfect. This dish is a great way to eat asparagus in season and a good way to enjoy it when it's not local. (Note that all her recipe titles are lower case type, so I followed suit).

I make quick cucumber pickles often in the summer, but Perelman turns hers into a bright new idea: "smashed cucumber salad with salted peanuts and wasabi peas." Another recipe where I fell in love immediately upon tasting. 

If you don't cook flank steak, the NYTimes' recipe for "Grilled Flank Steak with Worcertershire Butter" is a good starting point. Plus I froze the leftover Worcestershire butter so now I have a lovely little treat to make any meat special. 

Alas I did not take any photos of Perelman's "whitefish and pickled cucumber salad' which we ate on thick rye crackers along with "Charred Tomato Soup with Coriander and Cilantro" from the NYTimes. Both were great and they were also excellent paired. The Times suggested this was a good soup for gazpacho lovers, which we are. This soup was tasty and complex and much quicker to make than gazpacho. With fabulous tomatoes at my  local farmers' market, this is going to appear on our table a number of times before winter.