Each Little World

IVOM: Late August blooms

I decided to clip a few flowers to save them from the hot and windy weather we've been having. A storm was forecast so I went out as the sky got darker. Alas, the storm passed us by again. So no rain, but at least we can enjoy a bit of beauty in the house.

Our gardening neighbor grows a Kiwi vine on the fence between our gardens. It crawls over onto our side in the most wonderful way. But I tend to clip the long tendrils that want to rise up into the adjacent trees. I decided it was time to bring one of them indoors to showcase. 

I added a lichen covered branch and a wand of hips from Rosa glauca.

The Kiwi leaves started to fade quickly, but they were fun while they lasted.

The Lohan has been patiently waiting for a new bouquet.

Fennel flower heads, Kirengeshoma palmata Koreana group, Hakoenechloa grass and a large quilted leaf of Hosta 'Inniswood.'

Though I've done a lot of watering, a month without rain has caused much of the foliage in the garden to burn and begin to brown. 

A quick arrangement for the table of Calamintha nepeta ssp. nepeta, the flowers of garlic chives and a few Hosta blooms. 

Still no rain but at least the temperatures have moderated, so I am out to the garden again to plant some of the things that are lined up on the deck awaiting their new homes.

Serious garden re-do starts

Last August we walked through our garden with a respected local designer and then with an arborist, seeking advice on how these aging gardeners might maintain their aging garden with a little less work. At the top of the list of suggestions was removing trees that were no longer healthy and were causing problems for their neighbors. If you look carefully you can see two arborists getting ready to take down one of our unhappy Scots pines. 

We have more tree work that will happen once the ground freezes, but we wanted to get started sooner. Now I can begin transitioning the ground cover on the hills from weeds to Carex and ferns.

The crew from Tree Health Management could not have been more respectful of our plants and garden. They took two pines, a clump of buckhorns, and a big Carolina Silverbell down in small increments. That way nothing got injured in the process or in getting them out of the garden.

Those trees produced a lot of debris that was all ground up on site. The crew cleaned up the driveway and the area where they were working beautifully. Now we just need a little rain and cooler temperatures for me to do my share of the redesign. 

If you don't know where to look, you can barely tell how much was removed. But the space is brighter and more open and will let us see views that had gotten hidden over the years. 

Cherry bombs

Sunny, temps in the 90F°+ range and dry as a bone. Though I have a stash of plants that need to get into the ground, I am doing nothing but watering; trying to keep old and new alive and well.

I planted Allium 'Millenium' late last year and this is it's first season of bloom. Dense flower heads of a most attractive cheery, cherryish pink.

Angelica gigas was just put in last week. The bees have been all over it. 

A summer Sunday

We drove out into the country Sunday morning and met with the other two couples who comprise our book group. Nothing like a morning surrounded by summer flowers, barns and acres of corn as far as the eye could see. I love it when the road dips and you find yourself driving through a valley of corn.

But that bounty also brought to mine the terrible crop devastation that the derecho storm brough to neighboring Iowa. These days it is hard not to continually bump up against bad news.

We ran into a road-resurfacing detour and found ourselves on a road we'd never taken before. What a surprise to stumble across this sight.

Not the typical kind of entrance drive to most houses and farms in Wisconsin. Though I'm not sure I'd want to drive under that massive saw blade on a stormy day.

The August garden

Despite all the bright flowering perennials that are blooming in every garden right now, those are not plants that I grow. No Echinacea or Rudbeckia or Joe Pie weed for me. That means my garden is mostly greens at the moment. There are still flowers to come, but I am enjoying this quiet transitional moment.

Carex elata 'Bowles Golden' interspersed with the speckled leaves of Tricyrtis hirta 'Lemon Twist'

Tricyrtis hirta 'Lightening Strike' would never have to flower to deserve a place in my garden.

Adiantum venustum, aka Himalayan Maidenhair fern, is a workhorse, despite its delicate beauty. Here it's paired with a Hellebore from Pine Knot Farms.

Astrantia major 'Vanilla Gorilla' kept trying to revert to green leaves all summer. Finally I cut it back to the few proper variegated ones hidden at the bottom of the plant. This is my reward for giving it some tough love. 

Last summer and all this growing season, lots of money, time and sweat has gone into replacing grass that's been shaded out by trees with assorted Carexes. Everywhere I look they are settling in and looking good. I should have some nicely filled in swaths by next summer.

Despite too little August rain and way too many rabbits, there is still a lot to please me in the garden.

Small surprises in August

In August of 2018, I ordered a few plants on a late summer sale from Avant Gardens in Dartmouth, Massachusetts. Imagine my delight when I discovered they had included a Cyclamen purpurescens as a free, bonus plant! This plant has performed since day one, never really going dormant during the growing seasons. It slowed down during our current hot weather but has never really stopped looking good. 

I was so happy with this little charmer that I ordered another from Edelweiss Nursery along with some other things last spring.

This second one has settled in nicely as well. Despite how it looks in the above photo, the foliage is still quite small as you can see when its contrasted with the surrounding swath of Thalictrum kiusianum.

I decided to take a chance on a couple of fancy foliaged Cyclamens as well. But I was disappointed when they disappeared almost immediately after planting. I assumed they were unhappy and died. But they both popped up again and are looking good for baby-size new plants. This is C. purpurescens ex. Lake Garda which is correctly described as having "strong markings on the leaves."

This is C. purpurescens "pewter leaf" and definitely is that. 

I am happy with my tiny collection and the plants are perfect companions to their small neighbors like this hairy lip fern aka Cheilanthes lanosa 'Mighty Tidy.' Though it will only get six inches tall, it is supposed to get a foot wide, which would be a nice ground cover.

Spots of color inside and out

We are having a heat and humidity wave but the rain keeps passing us by. I picked a quick bouquet of Heuchera flowers. I have a number of plants of this variety but haven't a clue as to which one it is. I only know it produces more flowers than any other one I grow. 

I brought in this broken branch from one of my species Peonies indoors because I love the seed pods. They start out looking like green jester's caps. 

To my surprise, it opened up to display its dramatic interior after a few days in water in the house. The red seeds are the infertile ones.

My Rosa glauca only got flowers on one long cane. I really grow it for the foliage and it never got Japanese beetles this summer, so I am more than happy with this modest display of rose hips coloring up. The foliage in this photo is from the Peony and Hellebore growing beneath the rose. 

Playing in the garden

Last Friday we drove out to our favorite local nursery, The Flower Factory. They have been my go-to source since I began gardening right around the time they opened. They are retiring and closing up shop at the end of this month. So I made a big haul last week during pre-scheduled, masked and distanced shopping. 

Mostly flats of assorted Carexes and five more of my favorite fern, Dryopteris australis. I've spent mornings every day since then putting things in the ground, hoping that the rain that is continually forecast will arrive soon. 

Hosta surprise

When I went out to de-flower a bunch of Hostas yesterday morning, this is what I saw as I looked down. A flower that, from above, looked radically different than a fully opened Hosta stem typically does. More like a Chrysanthemum than a Hosta. Nevertheless, I cut it and its brethren off to clean up the look of the Hosta swath. 

Something new

I planted a number of new Tricyrtis varieties this spring and T. 'Taipei Silk' decided to bloom its first year. 

Last year Thalictrum 'Splendide' shot up into the Korean maple that grows next to it. At about ten feet high it started to hang down, mimicking a whispy lilac curtain.

This year it climbed into the tree again but tried something new. It flopped horizontally in the tree branches at about 7' above ground. It still has that wonderful whispy effect, but it's no longer blooming above my head. This year it's more like a skirt than a curtain.