Each Little World

Gardener gardens

Our recent rains coupled with reasonable temperatures have kept me out of the house and away from the computer. I dug out three Hostas on Tuesday and replanted chunks of them to complete unfinished areas of the garden. Did the same with Maidenhair ferns. Moved a young Rodgersia and spread out some Iris germanica. The front garden is laughably out of control as I am ignoring it while the road work continues. I am a tired but happy gardener and I'll get back to blogging soon.

This is Hydrangea quercifolia 'Pee Wee'; one of my last purchases from Song Sparrow in 2019. Size-wise it's reached its 4' x4' size in a mere four years rather than the eight suggested. I plan to move it this fall as it's hiding too much of the other plants in this area. It was eaten almost to the ground by rabbits in its second year but clearly that didn't slow it down one bit.

Ferns

I love ferns. Large or small, native or not, I can't get enough of them.

This is Cheilanthes lanosa 'Mighty Tidy' aka Hairy Lip fern. Eventually it's supposed to spread into a foot-wide clump. But that is going to take so long that I am not worried that these two are planted too close together. They're in my so-called rock garden which gets sun and great drainage as these ferns require. Almost every plant in this bed is a quirky dwarf and I need the tags to id them.

I have had terrific success with our native maidenhair ferns as well as the Himalayan variety. So I decided to try Adiantum aleuticum imbricaturm, the dwarf western maidenhair fern, which is also found in Wisconsin. The fern in the center left is a no id variety. What I really love is this mix of ferns with Carex morrow var. temnolepsis 'Silk Tassel.' This Carex is at the top of my "must get more" list.

The autumn fern, Dryopteris erythrosora 'Brilliance,' emerges latest of all the ferns I grow. I always leave last year's fronds in place so I know something is actually planted in that bare spot. 

When they are most autumnal looking I can see them in this view from inside the house. The yellow flag marks a newly planted shrub that needs watering. 

I just realized that the spores on the back of the fronds of the nearby Christmas ferns (Polystichum acrostichoides) are the same warm cinnamon color as the autumn ferns. A happy accident rather than planned planting. 

Now I'm thinking perhaps I should add a couple of these Digitalisferruginea into the mix.

Or perhaps the Digitalis should go by the Tea House where they'd nicely echo the 'Mrs. R.O. Backhouse' martagon lilies. 

Where they went No. 3

This image looking down the Tea House slope has always been one of my favorite views of the garden. For the last few years it has also been the area where I've been replacing high maintenance perennials like Hostas with shrubs.

It has been a problem free landscape except for the rabbits; thus the caged Deinanthe cerulea. Deinanthe is a shrubby perennial which dies back in the autumn and returns each spring. Its size makes it function like a no-fuss shrub. 

Despite a lot of extra watering, this year's weather and the loss of a neighboring tree proved too much for the Deinanthe. In September I dug it up and moved it to a much shadier location where I hope it can recover. I've had this lovely plant since 2006. It came from the the source of so many of my treasures: the late Seneca Hill Perennials.

I replaced it with New Jersey Tea (Ceanothus Americans), a low growing  native shrub whose flowers attract humming birds. An Oak Leaf Hydrangea (H. quercifolia 'Pee Wee') is behind it. The Hydrangea flowers on old wood and our erratic early spring temperatures have kept this from flowering for the last two years. Luckily it has distinctive foliage to recommend it.  

Among the other shrubs along the edge of this slope are Cornus sanguinea 'Compressa", a trio of Thuja occidentals 'Pancake' and a few others that are not visible. There are still a few Hostas because they are one of the few plants that provide so many foliage options in my Zone 5 climate. 

Pond re-design: The Upper Pool

The first step that Mark undertook in his big pond re-design project was the Upper Pool. This is where the recirculated water whooshed out between the rocks, overflowing between the stepping stones to travel down the stream into the big pond. (Double click the pictures to see the images larger).

. . .

2010: I was not allowed to plant in this area until Mark built the Tea House which is adjacent to it; a 10-year project in itself. Clearly this photo is from the earliest planting scheme which involved a lovely Amelanchier tree that died. 

2015: Five years later and things are coming along. The weeping Serbian spruce tree blocks your view down the stream into the big pond. 

2018: By this time the Upper Pool is almost completely hidden by the native water plant, Sagitaria latifolia. This view clearly shows the stepping stone path between the Upper Pool on the right and the stream on the left. 

APRIL 2021: Mark began actual work on the Upper Pool as soon as it was possible in the spring. He thought of the Upper Pool as his test project to see how this whole concept of a dry gravel garden would work. It meant taking the pond plumbing apart up here and pulling out the rubber liner. Doing that, however, also meant that we had made the pond system inoperable. There was no going back from this step.

Mark's using a sump pump and a commercial strainer to get all the  water out of the pool and the wet organic debris that was at its bottom. He piled the debris in the strainer to let as much water drain off as possible. 

I then emptied them into a wheelbarrow and he dumped the goop in any available bare spot in the garden to dry it out more. Eventually we took it to the Badger Road drop-off for garden waste. 

Once the pool was empty and dry, he pulled out any rocks he wanted to rearrange.

Next the hole was filled with soil. Notice how he was moving a wheelbarrow across piece of plywood on top of the steeping stones in order to dump the dirt where he wanted it. A more treacherous system than I was comfortable with, but he didn't have any accidents. 

We had initially thought we could hire a landscape firm to do this project, but the ones we called weren't interested. It didn't take Mark long to realize he was constantly making decisions that only he could make. It was not easy, but it made sense to do everything by himself that he was able to do. Here he's reshaping the edge and rearranging the rock placements. 

MAY: Mark drove up to Michel's Waterloo Quarry and brought back a pickup truck load of quartzite chips for the top layer of the Upper Pool. 

JUNE: We continued to play around with rock placement up here as work on the big pond began. You can see that the gravel does not go beyond the edge of the pool at this point in the process. 

August: As work on the big pond drew to its conclusion, Mark topped up the Upper Pool with more quartzite chips. Here you can also see that the gravel is now in the stream bed on the other side of the stepping stones as well. 

SEPTEMBER: The view in the other direction, standing on the stepping stones. 

I know a lot of gardening friends were shocked when we told them what we were planning to do. We were both thrilled with the result of this first big step. The garden feels new and different, which is not easy to accomplish when you have been in the same place for almost 30 years.

The gravel lightens the look and physically opens this area compared to when it was full of water plants. It is the perfect contrast to the highly planted area that surrounds it. 

IVOM: Tea House display

After four months, our pond project is done. On Sunday, we hosted an Open Garden for friends to see the Zen face-lift we've given the pond. This is the arrangement we created for the Tea House. 

Pond-redesign update: The little gravel garden goes away

Garden projects like re-doing the pond are never quick or easy. They also create related projects that need doing at the same time. That's the case with this secondary project that we finished last week. This shows the area as it looked in the early years as you came around the house to the back garden. The old is deck on the left and the pond on the right. 

In 2008 we decided to turn this discreet area into a raked gravel garden to relate it to the one out front. Mark removed the grass, made a sinuous rock wall and put down weed barrier. 

It got topped off with fine gravel, raked and looked perfect. 

Thirteen years later, it is less than perfect with construction debris — limestone pieces and an old wood bench — taking up space. Both shrubs had seriously deteriorated from bad winters and bad bunnies. Mark and I decided that this raked gravel garden made no sense if we were turning the big pond into one as well. This smaller one would detract from the pond re-do, so it had to go. To revert this area back to a planting zone, meant that everything that had gone into its creation now had to come out.

First Mark removed the best gravel off the top and added it to the front gravel garden. The rest went into the pond (below) as filler. 

Then he pulled up all those pieces of weed barrier to reach the soil level.

But before we could add more dirt, we had to pull out the stone wall. 

Despite being smallish stones, they were heavy and not easy to just grab and pull out. I know since I helped on this part of the project. 

As stones were being pulled out on one side of this slope below the Tea House, they were being used to create a new wall on the other side. Previously logs delineated the path. 

First load of soil goes down just before the mostly dead shrubs were removed. The one on the left is a Burning Bush so I was fine with seeing it go.

Glad I left the flags in place as I never would have been able to figure out where my spring ephemerals were planted once the rock wall was gone. 

A second load of dirt and the area is ready for me to plant. The rock piles on the back right are for a different project. 

I used two bags of our chopped leaf much to keep the dirt from blowing away. 

I more or less have a planting plan; I just need to get up and out early enough to have energy to do the work. 

Good news for gardeners from Great Dixter

Readers of this blog likely know that many of the elements of our garden design were influenced by Japanese gardens. Thus, for the last twenty years, I've planted many treasures from Asia. But climate change and habitat loss have all gardeners looking at their garden with new eyes.

I'm happy to be able to say that I've composted kitchen and garden debris, mulched with chopped leaves and haven't sprayed or used many chemicals over the years. I have an old Bur Oak tree and a crop of seedlings that I'm nurturing (below), along with every fern native to Wisconsin happily romping around my garden.

But I am not a native plant aficionado nor do I want to give up all the lovely non-natives I've planted over the years. That's why I was thrilled with the information that Fergus Garrett, head gardener at the famed Great Dixter estate in the UK, shared with those of us who signed up for his webinar as part of Olbrich Botanical Gardens spring lecture series, "A Gardener's Call."

The "call" refers to the idea that gardeners need to "recognize and respect all beings’ contributions to healthy garden ecosystems." If we do that, then we will be able to support all life in the garden. I totally agree with that concept which is why I sat up and took notice when Garrett showed us that ornamental horticulture does that very well. 

Photo by Andrew Montgomery/Gardens Illustrated magazine

Garrett decided that Great Dixter needed a comprehensive biodiversity audit that would then provide the knowledge that he felt was critical to managing Dixter in the best way. It wasn't really news, he noted, when the survey showed the meadows, ponds, pastures and woodlands on this old estate were extremely rich. 

Photo by Andrew Montgomery/Gardens Illustrated magazine

The big surprise — and what excited me — was the fact that the survey found the richest part of all was the ornamental garden (above). The survey clearly showed the garden, even with its fancy floral displays, supported an extraordinary amount of wildlife. Though Garrett hadn't specifically gardened with biodiversity at the forefront, it was there as a by-product.

That means I don't have to tear up my garden and start over. I can leave my non-natives in place and add more if I want. The big lesson is having as much diversity as possible. The things I've ordered online, or plan to buy locally, range from grasses to shrubs to bulbs and perennial plants; all of which means I am moving in the right direction for diversity. Add in the fact that almost half of them are native and I no longer have to feel guilty for wanting a garden that showcases non-native plants.

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.