December Colors

One of my ongoing projects is to find different plants that provide bright colors in the winter.  They don't have to be the brilliant colors of summer, because their setting is much more muted.  But small bits of mauve, purple, red or yellow seem to jump out.

 Here is one bit of green, which would not even be noticed during the summer.  But now with everything died to the ground, this Arum sintenisii, from Plant Delights is striking.  When I saw this Arum is from Cyprus, I had to have it as a reminder of our trip to Cyprus last January.  Having visited that Mediterranean island and learning how hot and dry it is in the summer, I can understand why this dies back in the late spring, only to put new leaves up when the weather cools.

The Heather Bed has the most color because I have tried to pick varieties by their winter blooming schedule or the winter foliage.  The whole bed has done very well this year because we regularly kept it moist through soaker hoses.  Even though the surviving plants have had to endure our summer droughts, they so much prefer the comfort of being watered.  The red foliage of the "Multicolor" heather is very welcome, even with the problem keeping these plants alive. I have lost several, and don't know if it was from summer drought or the super cold winter two years ago.

What has been the most surprising combination is this mix of lavender flowers from three different plants that are all blooming together.  While the picture is not the best, since the plants are spread out over several feet so it is hard to get all in focus, you can see them here.  The blur of green and a very light lavender-blue on the bottom right hand side of this shot is a spreading rosemary plant.  Behind it you see the in-focus flowers of lavender.  I don't have my plant list here as I write this, so I cannot be sure, but I suspect these are Hidcote Blue.  This is another plant I grow as much for having visited the Hidcote Manor Garden, and seeing the plant reminds me of that incredible place.  In the background, in a shadow from the holly tree, is a lavender heather.  The name is written down in my garden journal, but that is miles away from where I am writing.

Finally, there is a January and February bloomer that has jumped ahead of the seasons, the Winter Jasmine, or Jasmine nudiflorum.

 

This is a new bush that we started along the top of a retaining wall behind the house.  The original plant was bought from the National Arboretum many years ago, and sprawled down over the retaining wall around our house in Washington, DC.  I brought a piece out when we first bought the house in Maryland, and have the original bush attempting to grow up and over a different retaining wall.  That one doesn't get the sun so strongly, and has not begun blooming like this. 

This is such a cheerful yellow, it leads me to smile every time I see it.  It is just what is needed when the weather is too cold to be outside, and the wind is whipping around. All the better with a bit of snow, and the jasmine defiantly blooming through it!

Tucked into bed for a long winter's nap

Here is the Before picture - the way everything looked in the middle of November when lots of our neighbor's trees had provided leaves for mulching.  Unfortunately, those oak and tulip poplar leaves don't collect in neat piles or get chopped up before delivery.  The perennials were mostly still green, providing nutrients to the roots for next year.  You can see the light blue of the Chesapeake Bay, and the darker blue line of the other shore.  More about that later.

So, here is After. The big Fall clean-up is done.  There are many tasks involved, but the most important is a final mowing of the lawn to cut the grass short for the winter.  Since we use a grass catcher, it also vacuums and chops up all remaining leaves that have fallen.  It results in a mixture of the grass and leaves, which with good rain and the right weather, can begin decomposing.  It is never done by spring, but makes good compost over time.

There are several things that step forward in the winter season.  For example, the informal, mixed evergreen hedge in the "back corner" of the labyrinth, visible in the top left corner of the "after" shot.

Here is a closer view. Starting from the left is the juniper that runs along the top edge of the slope, with a golden thread leaf false cypress barely visible between it and the tall grass.  Then a winter berry, two Sky Pencil hollies (trust me, there really are two there), a Chesapeake holly with an equally tall gold thread leaf cypress next to it, then another Sky Pencil holly, and a clump of tall grass at the edge of the road. Not yet tall enough to be seen are two Osmanthus bushes on either side of that solitary Sky Pencil holly - next year they should really begin to make themselves known.  Scattered on the ground are low, spreading dwarf hollies and hellebores.  I love the mixed green colors, different textures and shapes that provide screening.

In the more private part of the garden, behind the house and only visible to our neighbor on the North side, the Heather Bed was at peak color a few weeks ago.  Although many of the heather have died in hot, dry summers, there is still a nice mixture of perennials shrubs and grasses.  This shows the "spreading rosemary," at the bottom left, which according to the label would only be a foot tall.  Wrong!  But it takes heavy pruning in stride, and is becoming wonderfully ancient looking.  There is red from the spirea next to it, and behind that the flowers of the 7 foot tall grasses growing much further down the slope.  The bright yellow in the center left is the lone surviving Clethra which really wants more water than it will ever get on this steep slope.  Then you see the trees from far down the slope and on the "flats," our name for the filled in area with houses barely about water level.  Visible is the top of one of the houses built on stilts to avoid water damage.    

In Calvert County, both the county and the real estate agents talk about property that have a "seasonal Bay view."  This means that during most of the year, the Chesapeake Bay is hidden by all of the leaves on the trees.  But for a few months, starting in November and ending in March, all can be seen.  The county assumes even a short term view of the Bay is worth more than none at all, and has a higher property tax rate for the privilege.  Our property is charged at the much higher "Bay view" rate, even though large portions are just seasonal.  So, here you can see the seasonal view now open from the center of the labyrinth.  I will talk about the odd shaped wild cherry tree in the center, next time.

   

End of November

As the active growing season settles down, the mood in the yard has shifted, with the view of the Bay opening up as trees lose their leaves, and the dominant color is no longer green.

Relationships between plants and sections shift, as the evergreens grow in prominence, the bare branches of the deciduous shrubs become transparent, and herbaceous perennials shrink down to the cluster of leaves at the base or disappear altogether.

The view from the path circling around to its end in the center shows some of the changes.  There are only a few leaves left on the Katsura, while the crape myrtle directly ahead is still dark green with leaves.  The very dark green of the Japanese cedars appears almost black, while the blue-green leaves of the false indigo at the bottom/front of the photo are losing intensity.  The two evergreens behind the crape myrtle are shifting.  The Dawn Redwood, just to the right of the crape myrtle is shifting color from green to bright brown, soon to a golden brown before the needles are dropped for the winter.  Then further to the right, the Franklinia has yet to move into its dominant winter role as the only large evergreen visible in the view to the Bay.   So, as the trees that block the view of the Bay during the summer become bare branches, other trees step forward.  Soon much of the foliage will need to be cleaned out, creating an openness that is refreshing.

Turing to the right, the mixture of shapes and colors of the border hedge along our neighbors yard attract much more attention.  The yellow-green of threadleaf false cypress, the narrow vertical shapes of the Sky Pencil hollies, the irregular masses of the Chesapeake hollies, the red berries of the Winterberries are all playing against each other.  The Osmanthus, which are still small and cannot be seen in the spaces in front of the white fence on the right side of this photo.  Eventually they will fill that area in with a mixture of green, white, and red accents. 

I will end with the view over the heather garden toward the Bay.  It is a mixture with a sprawling rosemary in the front, grasses, spirea, clethra, and all of the trees.

Remaining November Flowers

There are a few plants still producing flowers at the temperatures cool.  I suspect this Oxalis regnelli is a bit confused since it is supposed to only bloom in the spring time.  However, since it is barely winter hardy in the North Garden where it resides, there is a struggle in the spring for it to get going again.  Since it can be an aggressive and invasive plant in milder climates or locations, I am not bothered by how colder winters can radically reduce the size of the colony to a few plants. I am not sure whether to move any to the warmer sides of the house on the South and East, where it would likely be more of a nuisance. 

As the photo shows, the color of the leaves does shift to the more blue color seen in this photo in the fall, while the leaves display a much warmer purple along with warmer temperatures.

A plant in the North Garden finishing its first full season is Tinantia pringlei, the Speckled Wandering Jew, which I bought from Plant Delights.  It has been an amazing performer.  In this close-up shot, you can see the combination of features such as the dark purple stem, the freckles on the leaves, and the small pale flowers.  The plant has spread out about three feet in a low, loose mound with the stems mixing themselves into other plants, such as the Japanese painted fern in the photo.  I am hoping it will be winter hardy, and a few seedlings appear to try in other areas.

Over in the labyrinth, on a harsh site near the road, there is the Aster oblongifolius 'Fanny' which is also a new purchase from Plant Delights.  I have been trying to find more late fall blooming plants, and this is certainly the last aster to bloom, long after the native ones.  The descriptions in the catalog says it will eventually become quite large, but for its first year it has only grown to about 18 inches in diameter.  I like its loose, informal look, and look forward to seeing what happens next year.

Just so you don't think that I have a blue/purple bias for flowers, the dwarf reblooming German Iris Baby Blessed is putting on its late fall display.  I only wish I had these near those other blue flowers because I like combining blues and lavenders with this kind of light lemon colored yellows.  But this iris needs lots of sun, which would be a problem for the Tinantia and the Oxalis.  Once I get a sense of the final size of the aster, which does like sun also, I might be able to put the two together.

My final shot doesn't have any fall flowers, but it is doing so well, I just had to put it in.  It is an Agapanthus "Stevie's Wonder," also from Plant Delights, that started as a single plant.  It had a single flower stalk, with a long lasting cluster of flowers on the top in July.  David was quite surprised by it, never having noticed an Agapanthus before.  I fell in love with them from spending a month at the Mercy Center in Burlingame, CA where I did my training as a spiritual director.  It has developed at least three and maybe four plants, and they are going strong.

The Finished New Shed

So the contractor is done, and the new shed has siding, a roof, trim, and a door.  As this first picture shows, the majority of the walls are well hidden behind the retaining wall when viewed from the street.  I am particularly pleased that the Bay is still visible behind it.

While walking around the labyrinth, the shed is tucked behind the bush clover, and we expect to add more plantings along this side to further distract the eye from it.  Actually it does even more, since it is hiding all of the utility area on that side of the house, including the propane tank, compressor, electric meter, and septic tank cover.  While I don't particularly like the trim color on the house, which is a faded red color, they did a very good job matching it so that the visually fits into the same appearance.

The flower beds in the labyrinth area are slightly past their fall peak. We have begun trimming out the dying brown leaves and tops as the perennials pull back for winter.  The photo from this spot looks more like a jumble of plants, since only small sections of the grass path are visible.  I will show more of this with the next blog post.

Walking further back into the yard, the front of the shed becomes visible, along with the utility area.  There are a number of things we need to do, like putting blocks inside the front edge, so we can fill in the soil up to the edge of the shed.  We want to keep the soil out of contact with it to avoid rot.  The wood beams supporting the shed are laid on concrete blocks to keep them above the ground.  I am not sure what options there would be to prevent termites from climbing around them.  On the left side we also need to dig more soil out and put in a low retaining wall to keep the soil away from the side.  Of course, we now want to put in a nice, secret shade garden into the utility area, which is visible from the sun porch and kitchen sink.

Stepping further back, and looking up the hill, the shed now plays a very effective role of providing one of the most private areas of the yard.  The only other equivalent area is the North Garden, which I also consider a secret garden, since only one neighbor has windows overlooking it. This is much better since it has the view out toward the bay, shade from the crape myrtle tree in the morning, along with the nice sense of separation and enclosure from the shed.  Maybe we could put in a small patio area, which would double as a shed work surface? 

End of October

It is the season to to shift attention again, from the large effects and colors to the smaller details.  For example, this is just one of the two praying mantises, one in the juniper and the other in the yew.  While I will admit they are not small, when the garden is full of foliage and flowers, they are much harder to see or find. I always have felt a certain magic when I have found just one of these, and this year there were two within a few feet of each other.  How can you tell which are the males or females?

I have seen the same yellow beetles with black spots that I saw last year in Fall Details. This year there were a couple on a spike of salvia.  The camera didn't focus on the beetle, but on parts of the flower, so it is a bit fuzzy.  You can barely see the second one further down on the stalk.  These seem to drink the nectar from the flowers, but I still haven't been able to find out anything more about what they are. 

The final picture is a plant that first arrived as a stowaway in a pot with another plant.  The sorrel is usually considered a weed, but this variety with bright red veins is a small, low to the ground grower..  I have not had any problems with it becoming a pest, even though it is a self-seeder. It has been easy enough to dig it out where I don't want it. So, it stays in many places, and probably it could be harvested and used for soup.  We tried sorrel soup one but didn't find it very interesting. 

The New Shed

After a long wait, the construction on the new shed has begun.  Originally ordered in the early summer, it was several weeks until the contractor got to ours on his list of orders.  Then there were small problems like hurricanes and heavy rains in between vacations and trips to Haiti.  So, two weeks ago construction began, and the roof has been added since these pictures were taken.  It will house all of the garden tools, pots, the two electric mowers (one is battery), stakes, netting, and the other assorted materials. The first picture shows how it sits in behind the concrete retaining wall.

The picture on the left shows how it will look from the front porch.  This area is the closest we have to a back yard, since it includes the propane tank for the kitchen, the HVAC compressor, and the septic tank cover.  It is the most hidden from any road. This has been our vegetable plot for for ten years, but as the crape myrtle has gotten over twenty feet tall, it is casting too much shade. I am sure we will be planting bushes and vines to provide more screening once it is finished. 

The view from the side shows how it will actually hide most of the utility area from people who are walking the labyrinth, which will be very good.  I expect we will do something on the side with the door and windows to make it more friendly, but there is plenty of time to live with it over the winter before we decide upon anything.  It might even be possible to make a small, "secret" garden, with lots of shade which is very rare for our lot.  As long as we put in some fencing to keep out the long legged rodents that wander in from the nature preserve, we could grow some of those Hostas that David likes so much. 

September Showers bring October Flowers

Well, maybe that is not totally true since there are not a lot of new flowers to be seen.  All of that rain has had its impact, at least in keeping the grass green and growing much later than usual. In this early morning shot, the tops of the 'Karl Forester' grass glows in the nearly horizontal sunshine, a very nice complement to the over 7' tall Miscanthus sinensis 'Gracillimus' visible at the background.

To the left of the photo above, and to the left of the photo on the left, (I guess this proves I am really very leftist!) you can see the early fall color of the Parrotia persica.  This Persian Ironwood has been slowly and steadily putting up more vertical branches and has endured drought without  problems.  It doesn't change color all at once, so it provides a wide palate over several weeks.  Behind it, and to the right, is a Lespedezea Liukiuensis, or Bush clover.  The variety is "Little Volcano" and originally was bought at the National Arboretum sale 4 years ago.  The second year in this location, it has grown to 8 feet tall within the year.  We cut out the short, weak stems in March, and left in the tall ones.  Most of what you see is new sucker growth.  It would keep spreading out wider and wider without our digging out chunks in the spring and giving them away to neighbors.  The flowers are good for 3-4 weeks in the fall when little else is blooming, and leave a purple haze in the grass when they fall off.  Here is a close-up of the flowers.

Staying in a very similar color range is the Echinacea, Katie Saul, a new addition from Plant Delights Nursery.  This was just added this summer, and has already done much better than other Echinacea that we have had for years - I think it is time to give up on those that have continued to be disappointing with short blooming times and flowers that quickly became ratty looking.  I had read that breeders were pushing out Echinacea before thoroughly testing them, and from now on will only purchase them from nurseries like Plant Delights that test them before selling them to the public.  The local garden center has failed me a number of times in providing plants that are appropriate for our climate.  So, I am much more cautious about spending money there.

I am still undecided about this next plant, a lime green leaved version of Pheasant Berry, Leycesteria formosa - the label listed the formal variety as "Notbruce" while in large letters calling it Golden Lanterns.  Why not Bruce?  I have a personal interest in that!

It dies back to the ground in the fall, and only this year has it gotten quite sizable for its third year in the labyrinth.  It does create a spot of bright yellow-green, and the very top of the growth is stained with red.  The flowers do not start appearing until about the middle of the summer, and continue emerging at the plant grows larger.  The bracts are a purplish red and not particularly attractive close-up.  The seeds are supposed to attract birds, but I have not seen any birds eating them so far.  Some places warn that the seeds can get spread around and become invasive, which I have not seen yet, and if it begins, I will grub this out to avoid that happening.  Probably being on the edge of its hardiness zone will avoid that problem.  However, I am curious that if it really has the danger of becoming invasive, why was I able to buy it at the National Arboretum sale?  The deer have left it alone, which gives it an advantage since the deer regularly wander through for a snack. It is pleasant enough, and probably will be fine where it is growing - for now at least.

So, since I have not been keeping up with the blog as much as my readers have expected, I will throw in one last picture.  An arty shot of the sunrise sen through the flowering grasses.  This is one of the great pleasures of growing these tall grasses, along with seeing them sway in the wind, like the waves on the Chesapeake Bay.

After Irene

Yes, I know, Irene passed through at the end of August.  But amazingly, there was no significant damage to any of the gardens in the yard, and only a small hole poked into one porch roof by a falling branch.  Our next door neighbor told us that one branch was "planted" about 4 feet away from our sliding glass doors out of the basement.  We found a deep hole created by that branch.  Our neighbors moved it away, so the picture on the right may be it.  It was about 30 feet long, and the butt end was about 6 inches in diameter - amazing when I consider how far it must have traveled in the wind!

The front of the yard had shredded twigs, with leaves still attached, that had been pulverized by the heavy wind.  The leaves included both oak and tulip popular, and Mike from next door told me that he had looked out in the middle of the night and saw many of the trees between his house and the bay bent at 90 degrees!

The rain arrived first for 24 hours so that the sandy soil was saturated with water when the high winds hit.  Many of the trees were pushed over sideways ripping roots out of the soil.  But other trees had been damaged with some micro-burst patterns, because the trunks were severely twisted.  They had been wrung out like a washcloth, all twisted and splintered.  I am just as glad we were not at home when it all happened, especially since the power was out for a week.  Debbie, from next door, counted 26 trees across the road between our street and the main road.

There is one major improvement for us, thanks to Irene.  Many of the tall, weedy sumac trees that grow on the steep slope between our house and the "flats" were blown over.  This shot of a sailboat seen between the trunks of the crape myrtle show how much more open the view has become.  There is still one ugly sumac surviving. I do hate them because the roots are very in-effective in holding the soil in place, and they are constantly breaking off in much milder storms.  I don't have a picture of the wild cherry that is near the top of the hill, but the top of it was severely broken up.  While I like the cherry for the sake of the birds, the top keeps getting shattered in every wind storm.  Weak sucker growth fills in the top of the cherry, then it is partially broken or bent, and hangs there, slowly rotting before finally falling off.  We want to get a permit from the county to cut it down, and replace it with some smaller, deep rooted trees.  But I know the birds will miss feasting on all of those cherries as they ripen every summer.

 So, the labyrinth seems to have survived the heavy wind and rains.  I am very glad we put in the 10 tons of rock earlier, holding the soil in place at the top of the ravine.  There is fresh color from a new aster and echinea, and some of the foliage is turning colors in anticipation of the cooler temperatures.

But I am getting ahead of myself.  There are more photos to finish up for the next entry.

Hardy Hibiscus in July

Now that it is July, each of the plants is doing its best to make a show, as the picture above makes clear.  There was one casualty last winter, the large viburnum bush that screens much of the labyrinth from the road and the neighbors nosey eyes, got confused and entered Winter in Spring mode.  Much of it was killed off. 

If you look at the right of the photo where you see our neighbor's bright white front steps, you will see a few of the viburnum's remaining branches.  It is supposed to hide those steps.  You can see on the right, the new suckers that are coming up from the roots.  Each is only about a foot tall, but these are the future trunks of the bush.  Once they get big enough, the old ones will get cut out.

But the topic for today is the hardy hibiscus, of which there are now three.  Each provides some bright color in pink, red or mauve.  If you go back to the top panorama, you can see all three.  In order, from the right and below those white steps is a bright pink one, just to the right of the center tree trunk is a dark red one, and below the left side of our neighbor's arch top trellis is a mauve one.  Each has a different history and style.

The pink one comes from the house my family owned in Pleasant Valley, New York.  My parents bought a large, old farmhouse, and in the first few years I discovered a hibiscus growing along the side of the pond.  When I showed Mom the flowers, she knew what it was, and had me dig it up to plant it up next to the bay window.  This was in the mid-60's, and it was probably originally planted by the previous owners who had landscaped the area near the pond.  I assume it is an early variety of Hibiscus moscheutos, but cannot find any source on the Internet to identify it.

The color is bright and simple, and the flower is not complicated. Each flower lasts about a day.  This particular plant was moved to the current location last fall, and has settled into its new home very quickly.  Since there are not as many buds on it, there will only be two weeks of flowers, but that period may lengthen as the plant gets bigger. 

The one in the middle, behind the tree is Hibiscus "Robert Fleming."  Its flowers are HUGE, at least 8 inches across, and open up very flat like a plate.  As you can see in the picture there are many buds to go on this stalk alone, and there are seven stalks.  These flowers stand out even when partially hidden by the foliage of other plants.  I first wrote about it last November, and I am still thrilled with this plant.  My only concern is that at the current rate of growth, which is near a young boxwood hedge, it will soon become much to large.  But I like it where it is.

The last hibiscus, which is a mauve/pink color is to the left.  I must apologize because i had planned to get a close-up of it, but never took that picture.  But then, I also wasn't able to find its name, and since I am trying to be sure to include accurate names whenever possible, I will need to catch up on that one later.  We bought it to grow on the porch last summer, and put it in the ground in the Fall.

I will close with a shot taken from the road to the right of the top picture.  You will see the church bird feeder I painted a couple years ago - this is the first it has been put out in the garden.  We plan a vine to grow up the post, but haven't picked one out yet. The post is there to prevent future vehicles, including snow plows, from driving through the garden and hedges.  If they try it again, at least their vehicle will get as messed up as the garden has been.  Anyway, here is the shot.

Catching up with May Flowers

With many activities happening on weekends during this time of year, there is little time to keep up with the garden, and less time to write about the whole thing.  So, in a attempt to catch up, here are some photos taken throughout the month.

 Here is the Gold Sovereign tree peony, which is growing in the North garden.  This was originally bought for our house in Washington, DC, and grew there for many years.  It was moved out to Maryland a few years before selling the DC house.  I have had trouble finding  place where it can be happy, particularly since it seem much more susceptible to blight in the humid air near the water.  But you would never know that in the Spring, when the leaves are fresh and green, and the pure yellow flowers open up to show the pin cushion of stamens on the inside.  In the fall I will move part of it over into the labyrinth, since I am hoping it would get more sun and be less affected by the blight.

Also in the North garden is this climbing rose.  The name is written down somewhere, but for the sake of getting pictures up, I have to leave it out.  This rose was spectacular this year, with dozens of flowers cascading from its stems.  The pictures that I took were never able to capture the glory of them, so I decided to show this close-up of an opening flower and nearby bud.  Since this rose bush can been seen from our bedroom window, it is quite the sight when getting up in the morning.

The North Garden our secret garden, since it is surrounded on two sides by the house, on the north side by a board fence, and the entrance has a magnolia on one side and Japanese Acuba on the other, leaving a four foot wide entrance.  It could also be called the Deer Candy Garden, since it is packed with hostas, daylillies, and of course the rose, all of which are favorites of those long-legged Rats.

Here is a view of my false indigo, Baptisia sphaerocarpa 'Screaming Yellow' which grows under the Katsura tree in the middle of the labyrinth.  In the four years in that location, it has become quite large, making a ball of foliage that is over three feet in diameter.  I have to trim off some of the side where it crowds the path of the labyrinth.  It blooms earlier than the other perennials, making a good transitional source of color after the bulbs have finished. 

If you look closely, you can see a bee approaching one of the flowers.  I have had a lot of bee activity, so I hope I am doing my part to support healthy colonies in the area.  While many like to leave the seed heads on their false indigo, I trim them off of this plant.  It is right in the middle of the whole garden, and the black and dead seed heads make the whole area look like it is not being maintained.  I leave them on the plants growing down the side of the ravine, and I hope some of the seeds will find places to grow and add more color and soil stability there.

Here you can see one of the Irises that I brought back from my Mom's garden in Amelia, Ohio in 2009.  Cheryl and I had gone in the Spring to clean-up and replant sections of the flower beds.  In the process we found a number of Iris Mom had planted, which were being overwhelmed by a ground cover.  While we moved many up to the front of the house, there were lots of small pieces that I brought back and stuck into the flower beds in the labyrinth.  This is the first one to bloom, and you can see the false indigo behind it in the picture.  I love combinations of yellow with blue and purple!  I wish I could say I planned it, but I really had no idea what the variety is.

In researching Iris grower's websites, I believe this is a "Costa Rica" Iris.  It is quite beautiful, and reflects Mom's delight in dramatic, multi-hued flowers.

This is another Iris with family associations.  There are many clusters of these iris around the labyrinths, and I expect that many of our neighbors will have them starting in the fall.  These original clumps of these came from the pastures around my childhood home in Pleasant Valley, New York. When I was a young teenager, I would cut large clumps of stems and walk around the neighborhood selling them at 10 for 5 cents.  A bargain, since I made sure there were also more buds on each stem.  I once did some research into the various types of Japanese Iris, of which this is probably a species.  But I cannot find my notes, so I am unable to list that here. 

I love these, very simple and clean flowers that go back a long way in my life.

This is the Siberian Iris "Jeweled Crown" which was new last Spring, and has grown much larger just in the year.  It had a series of buds opening, so the length of bloom lasted almost two weeks, making quite the statement.  With the rate it is spreading, this will soon become scattered throughout the labyrinth, and a few years later, into our neighbor's gardens.  But, isn't that part of the fun of gardening - spreading the joy.

There are more pictures to be shown and stories to be told, but they will have to wait for another time.

Jack-in-the-Pulpit

Since I have been distracted in running another blog for the church this last month, I have some catching up to do.  I will begin with the still small collection of Jack-in-the-Pulpits that I have.  Only three varieties, though I could easily buy many more.

This is an Arisaema serratum, bought at a National Arboretum sale a few years ago.  It is the earliest of the varieties to bloom, and shoots up to three feet tall before that pitcher-shaped bloom appears.  This grows up so early, the toad lilies that will grow up later and hide its dying leaves have just stuck their first leaves out of the ground.  The serratum leaves are very narrow and spiky, creating a slightly creepy effect that looks like something out of a vampire movie.

Unfortunately, as you can tell from the background of vinyl siding at the top and cinder block foundation at the bottom, it's setting is not the most attractive.  But I can guarantee you that it is so exciting to see the growing spear point coming out of the ground announcing its arrival, that you don't really care.  You saw this in the previous blog entry for the End of March.  See, I did come through with the promised pictures.

The next ones to come up are some native Jack-in-the-Pulpits that I rescued several years ago from the side of the ravine.  The ravine, which fairly regularly has had times when the soil gets wet and the sides slide down to the bottom, had exposed a clump of the arisaema.  I did not want to wait to see if it would survive the location where it was newly exposed to full sunlight, so I dug out a small portion and moved it up alongside the house.  That was my first time to deal with the plants, and I was surprised to discover they have a small bulb in the ground.  This makes it fairly easy to move them around since there are not lots of long roots.

The native ones are plain in comparison with the more exotic varieties with a mostly green pitcher and short in stature.  But as the native, they have a claim to space before all the rest, and usually have the largest clumps of bright red berries in the Fall.

Finally, here is the Arisaema sikokianum, a Japanese variety that the Plant Delights Nursery describes as "circumcised!"  That is one sample of their humorous plant descriptions, which goes on to say about this variety "since Arisaema sikokianum doesn't offset or engage in sexual self-satisfaction, you'll need more than one to start a family."  At the current prices, this one will have to tough it out on its own, so it has not had a display of red berry babies in the Fall.  I don't know that I could handle the sight of a large clump of these.

But maybe I should end its celibate life and buy another? All of the baby plants could be sold at the church's May Fest.  These would always be blooming at the time of the sale, and they could be sold at really great prices, spreading across the county!   Every year I give the Episcopal Church Women some of my rapidly expanding clump of Acanthus plants, they sell out of them rapidly.

I suspect the native plant society is not happy with me.