End of March

As the end of March arrives, there are a few of the newly planted bulbs showing their flowers in the labyrinth, and many others with buds emerging from the ground.

There is a dramatic difference from last year, when the narrow flower beds between the grass paths were bare.  The idea is to fill them with bulbs, which provide growth and color when the perennials are just beginning to break through the mulch.  Then, after the bulbs die back, the sections will remain empty, contrasting to the rest packed with flowers.  The idea belongs to Harold Nicolson's Lime Walk at Sissinghurst, what he called "My Life's Work" which I hope to see in full bloom some day.  

You see the one of the first narcissus in the front, a variety called Marijke, with pale yellow back petals, and a deep orange, ruffled trumpet.  What the description in the catalog left out is the way the flower faces down to the ground, so the orange trumpet is not even visible.  All that can be seen while standing and walking are the yellow petals.  This shy flower requires getting down on the ground, and looking over/up into the flower to finally see the orange trumpet.  Since the stem is only about six inches tall, you really have to get down low.  I am disappointed with its garden appearance, but as they build up clumps, I imagine many of these will be cut and brought indoors, so that they can bring their fresh brightness up-close on the dining room table.  It also means that next year there will be something else planted alongside these to provide some other color.  Although when I look closely, I see that they are mixed in with something else further back from the entrance of the path.

Another place of excitement are the red leaves rising up from the Itoh hybrid peony called Kopper Kettle.  I found this at the National Arboretum sale last year, and it was a fully grown plant when I bought it, so I did not realize the initial color of the leaves would be this gorgeous.  This is a cross between a herbaceous and a tree peony, so the stems are heavier and stronger that the usual herbaceous, and the densely double flowers are described in one catalog as golden yellow, orange and red.  It is a rich and wonderful display, and I hope the plant will not need the wire supports that are required to keep the rest of the peonies from collapsing in a heap on the ground with the first heavy rain.  I hope this goes well with the peonies that were brought from the homestead in New York and a few other picked up along the way!  One catalog says that it might even re-bloom once it is established - I will be amazed if it will do that!

On the north side of the house, with some of the early Sunday morning snow beneath it, is the gallantly struggling tree peony, brought out from our property in the city. Here are the much smaller buds on the tips of the woody branches, beginning to unfurl.  This section of the yard is more protected, so the hellebores, bulbs and other peonies are actually ahead of the same varieties in the labyrinth area, even though they are not getting much sun at all.  Being on the north side of one section of the house, and the west side of another, they only get late afternoon sun in the middle of the summer, yet that is enough to keep them going.  Planted around the various stems of the tree peony are dog-tooth violets, or trout lilies - Erythronium pagoda.  I first grew these in my full-shade yard in the city, and fell in love with them.  The open-bell shaped flowers just make me smile.  I am pleased to see them multiplying and making bigger and bigger patches.  By the time the peony has fully leafed out, the Erythroniums are dying back and disappearing into the ground.  They are a perfect pairing!

Finally, I cannot resist a portrait of Four Paws, reluctant though she was to stay in place while I focused and clicked the shutter.  She is sitting next to the pointed stem of a Jack-in-the-Pulpit bought a few years ago from the National Arboretum.  This stem will reach two feet before the flower will grow on its top, far above any of the surrounding foliage.  In front of where the dog is sitting there is a clump of native Jack-in-the-Pulpit I moved up from the steep side of the ravine, where it was being threatened by erosion.  There is a third one, still underground, about where I am squatting to take the photo.  Pictures and names will be listed when they are blooming.  It is a fun, small collection, and I could easily become a fanatic since they are simple to grow and delightful in their variety.

Hopefully, today was the last snow of the year, and the weather will move out of the 40's next week.

Ten Tons of Work

So finally we did it.  After saying we needed to do it, David stopped by a rock yard and ordered ten tons of rip rap, supposedly in a 6-8 inch size.  David first thought about ordering seven tons, but decided just to be safe, he would go with ten.  He had planned to have them back it across the yard, closer to its destination, but the water company was concerned the truck would damage the water line running just a foot in from the edge of the road. Rather than wait until they could put in a steel plate, we just had them dump it at the edge of the road.

So, here you can see where it was dumped. Below that juniper hedge, at the edge of the ravine is where it is going, about fifty feet away, and over the edge.  Possibly you can see the bright red trunks of the red twig dogwoods that a nursery and I had planted along the sides, hoping they would sucker out and hold the soil.  Little did I know, the nursery did not plant the suckering type, and in matching their variety, nothing was holding anything much in place.  The heavy steel pipe was put in by the previous owner, and water running out had created a gully.  We had a nursery put in the black plastic pipe and run that down to the bottom.  It worked most of the time, but often the plastic disconnected.  Last fall, when eight inches of rain fell in three days, it had come off, and washed out another foot of soil.  The end of the steel pipe was at my shoulder when I stood in the gully below.

We carried rock and dropped it in place Saturday morning (after finally signing papers to refinance the mortgage - a process started last October!) then Saturday afternoon, then Sunday afternoon.  We took it slowly and carefully, watching how we moved and several times I used some yoga stretches when my muscles started cramping up. 

So on Sunday evening, at 5:30, we got it done.  To give you some sense of how much rock is in the ravine, the metal pipe sits just above the rock where it comes out from the ground, and the plastic pipe is now a couple of feet above the rock at the pipe.  It is a lot of rock!  I tried to protect the dogwoods from damage, but one was smashed to pieces by where I had to drop the rocks over the edge.  Others had various degrees of damage, but nothing deadly.  I will go in and prune them back, so they will sucker up with new growth above the rock.  So, just one final picture from the bottom so you can see how those ten tons look when filling in an erosion gully.

Hellebores in March

The extended cold throughout February has delayed the hellebores until this month.  But, as always, the wait is worth it.

With nothing else braving the still harsh weather, the newly emerging leaves and flowers of the hellebores seem to be too tender for what is going on around them.  But, as this one shows, they are up with new leaves and flowers, ready to start a new garden year.  Sure, the crocus are already blooming in the grass, which I reported earlier, and the witch hazels are putting out color and fragrance in abundance.  But it really is the first herbaceous perennial that signifies the beginning of a new year.  With the old name of Lenten Rose, these hellebores have come up slightly before Ash Wednesday this year.  But since this year has Lent starting about as late as it can, if this were any other year, they would have begun blooming a few weeks into that church season.  This one does have that soft, rose color, which I like.  It even has the tapered shape of a rose bud before the petals fully open up.  

I have a number of white varieties, and just bought a new one that has a bright, clean yellow flowers, "Winter's Bliss" which has been showing off on the dining table in the condominium in DC.  But the ones that most thrill me are the dark, deep purple or maroon reds, which seem much harder to find.  This is one of a group of unnamed seedlings I bought from a hellebore specialist a few years ago.  I took the chance on finding some particularly interesting colors and styles, and this one has certainly met that hope. This along with most of my hellebores are in the North flower bed, a small space with the house on two sides, a fence on the third, and our parking pad on the fourth.  I have begun moving some hellebores into sections of the labyrinth beds, as shaded areas grow slowly under various trees and shrubs.  They fit in well in the back of sections that are visible when all else has died down. If I get some other interesting blooms, you will be the first to see the pictures!

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Cutting the Ornamental Grass

A large sweep of tall grass starts behind labyrinth and covers the top of the steep slope down the ravine.  The grass, Miscanthus sinensis 'Gracillimus,' was on site 2000 when we bought the house.  It is on the left side of this photo, behind the low juniper edging.  Screening our neighbor's house from view when it is fully grown, it provides privacy for people who walk the labyrinth.  Its dramatic 30 foot wide drift rolls in waves in the wind, just as the water in the Chesapeake.

Here is a similar photo to the one above, showing the difference with the grass cut down.  Each spring the ornamental grass must get cut before the new green stalks begin growing.  February is the preferred month, with the temperature in the upper 40's or low 50's.  Using the electric hedge shears, this section took six hours to cut the grass, collect the straw and haul it down the hill into the brush heap.


If you look to the left of the tall pencil hollies, beside the edge of the junipers, you can see the brown, rounded stumps of grass.  Our neighbor uses the grass along the edge of her lawn.  I cut off some of that also, which can be seen behind the juniper.

Looking directly at the location from within the labyrinth, you can see the dramatic difference without the soft wall provided by the six to eight foot tall grass.  The Bay is even visible through the leafless trees, though that view will be gone once the leaves open up.  In the next two months, the grass will have grown high enough to provide a sense of enclosure and protection.  It also helps anchor the evergreens so that they don't seem to float so close to the edge.  There is an open view of the Bay, through the gap in the trees made by the ravine, just six feet or so to the left of the picture.  So, as a person is walking along the path away from the road, there is a shift from an intimate, private space to a long view to the horizon.