Snow and Fire

It is almost the end of June, and many flowers are at their peak.  Your eyes are drawn to the scarlet color of the Crocosmia 'Lucifer' in the foreground of this picture.  They stand out against all of the surrounding green foliage while reaching out over the pathway.  Walking the labyrinth this time of year requires pushing aside flowers and leaves that just don't have enough room in the narrow beds!

What catches my eye are the large white blossoms of the Crape Myrtle, Lagerstroemia 'Faurie Fantasy.'  I am constantly amazed by how beautiful it is when flowering.  The plan was for it to grow up alongside the sun porch, to screen the view of our neighbor's house, which it has fulfilled in its twelve years.  What I had not anticipated was being able to look out of the porch windows and see those flower clusters a few feet away.  It also provides a lot of shade, which helps keep that south side of the house much cooler.

We have had a new series of nibbling pests working at the lower level.  Rabbits!  The neighbors say there has been a flood of them across the area.  We had not realized how much the foxes kept them under control, and we haven't seen a fox in years. The rabbits have nibbled at some Celosia seedlings.  Don't worry Sis, a few have escaped damage and the nibbled ones seem to be trying to put up new side stems.

They also attacked several Portulaca, not just chewing them but digging them up!  The Portulaca were planted under the standard cedar, at the lower right side of this photo.  Hubby wanted to experiment with the bright red flowers among the intense yellow of the Moneywort, Lysimachia nummularia ‘Aurea.’  They are a bit fluorescent together, but hold their color in the intense sunlight.

There are a few renegade Crocosmia 'Lucifer' that stayed behind in this section.  I thought I had gotten them all, but for a few years, a small number in this location will be fine, until they try to take over the bed again.

In the background the smoke bush is still blooming, though sections of the filaments are starting to pull off.  So are other earlier flowers starting to fade, but that is the rhythm of a garden. 

View from the Bedroom

This is the view out our bedroom window in June.  Lots of different types, sizes and colors of leaves with occasional flowers appearing for a short time.  It gets much more shade than the rest of the yard, partly because of its location on the north side of the house.  But it also has a 20 foot 'Little Gem' Magnolia on the northwest corner, and a Japanese Snowbell in the middle.  Some of the branches of the snowbell are visible on the upper left side of this photo.

I also call this the hidden garden, because most of the time the wandering deer do not find their way into it.  So it has lots of Hostas and day lilies.  Just this morning I looked out the kitchen window to see a young deer walking into the labyrinth.  When I opened the front door, it looked at me casually and didn't move until I was stepping off the front porch to push it out.  The dog had no clue, so she didn't help anything. 

Visible on the right of this photo is Hydrangea Serrata 'Blue Bird.'  When I saw it at the nursery, growing among acidic soil under a pine tree, the blue color was intense.  Growing it alongside the foundation, I have to constantly add aluminum sulphate to the soil to keep the blue.  As you can see in the close-up below, I haven't put any on recently, and that is okay since I like the variation in color also.

That Bush is Smoking!

Most people are familiar with the tree versions of Continus coggygria, with their 20 foot tall heights and powder puff flowers.  This is a dwarf version, named 'Young Lady' that I originally bought from the National Arboretum nine years ago.  It is only now reaching five feet.

I tried a few locations before it settled into this one, and has been quite dramatically blooming for a few years now.  In this shot the whole bush appears to be glorying in the light of the setting sun.  They grab onto the sunlight, glowing from within.

These massive and delicate clusters of fine fibers are soft to touch, while hiding almost all of the leaves in their 2-3 week height of bloom. Only a few new shoots with bright green leaves are visible.

Here you can see how the thousands of fine, translucent fibers float above the thin stems to create that effect. 

It is quite satisfying to have this eye catcher when most of the spring bloomers are trying to produce seeds.  Of course, I am cutting them off as soon as possible so the plants can build themselves up for next year.  The hardy hibiscus are putting up their tall stems, and getting ready for their display, but it is still a few weeks away.

Purple Milkweed

Five years ago I purchased several seedlings of Purple Milkweed (Asclepias purpurascens) from a local native plant nursery.  There were maybe 4-5, each less than 4 inches tall.  The first year there were no flowers, and I wasn't sure they would survive, but the did.  Slowly they grew in size and the number of flowers, until last June I featured them for the first time on this blog.

Now they have taken off.  They are no longer individual plants, but are spreading out into a clump that needs to be managed.  I had to pull out several plants that had developed from roots a couple feet away from the clump because they were threatening one of the hardy hibiscus plants.

I am considering removing all of the other plants in this section of the bed, to give it over to these common, yet wonderful, flowers.  I will wait and see.  This is a host plant for butterfly caterpillars, so they could get pretty ugly looking if they are found.  Yet, I wouldn't mind having that problem if it encouraged more butterflies. 

Former Heather Bed

The last winter was no colder than can be expected for this location.  The temperatures went down into the 20's, and stayed there for long periods of time.  However, a series of warm winters for the last five to seven years induced a sense of illusion. It seemed safe to push the plant zones up, growing plants that are not winter hardy.

The danger of zone creep became clear in cleaning up the garden this spring.  Many plants did not survive the cold, including all of the Rosemary.  What I didn't expect was the impact on the heathers.  They were originally planted 10 years ago and survived very cold winters soon after. The tender varieties had died.  I thought the remaining would be safe, but was wrong.

Weeks ago I pulled out the dead heather. Wondering what to put in place of them, I considered the two "Hidcote Blue" lavender planted in a few empty spots.  They survived with just a bit of damage. 

This is a great site for lavender.  They would like the excellent drainage and lots of hot sun.  There is plenty of room for them to spread out, and they will hold the soil in place.  So I bought twelve small pots - it is better to start them small since they need to grow extensive roots before getting much bigger.  There are four new Lavandula angustifolis "Hidcote Blue" with two already established.  There are five Lavandula angustifolia "Munstead" and three Lavandula heterophylla "With Love."  I am taking a risk with the "With Love" variety, which is zone 7, but the garden is solidly within that zone.  The other two are hardy to Zone 4 and 5.

After setting out the pots on the ground, I decided to add a low rose bush, one of the new "drift ground cover roses, "Peach Drift."  I have tried other roses in this location, but none have survived.  I hope this one can handle it.

The last step was running a soaking hose through the bed, so that each plant gets plenty of water for the first year.  We will need to water every 3-4 days this summer, but they should be drought tolerant by next year.

The garden keeps reminding me that plants have a natural cycle of dying.  I have had to let go of my old dream for this particular section, and try out something different, hopefully better.  It sounds like other parts of my life.

Another Labyrinth

I have been away for a few weeks attending the Spiritual Directors International conference in Santa Fe, New Mexico, followed by a contemplative retreat at Ghost Ranch, New Mexico.  This is a picture of the Chartres style labyrinth at Ghost Ranch, set below one of the red rock mesas.  I walked this every day I was at Ghost Ranch, each time the light was different on the rock. 

Easter 2014

After a long winter, with the temperature regularly dropping below freezing, it is such a joy to see intense, bright colors against what is still a fairly gray background.  This is the 'Don Egolf' form of Cercis chinensis, or Chinese Redbud providing a magenta crown over the bed of daffodils.  This dwarf form of the Redbud has been blooming for more than a week, with the cool weather acting to keep the flowers from fading too quickly.

While I am unable to find the variety of daffodils, they have a light fragrance that occasionally reaches my nose when the breeze is right.  As long as the wind is not too strong, as it is while I am writing this.

Speaking of daffodils, is it interesting how some varieties, like these, settle in and multiply rapidly, while the four other varieties that were planted at the same time only have a few remaining bulbs blooming.

Along with the flowers, much of the emerging foliage has its own character to add to the delight.  These are the stems and leaves of the Paeonia 'Kopper Kettle' which is one of the "Itoh" or interspecies varieties.  It includes the genes from both the herbaceous and the tree peonies.  In this picture you can see two woody stems that began the winter with buds, just like a tree peony.  In previous years, those buds have grown up along with new stems growing up from below the surface of the ground.  However, it appears the long periods of below freezing weather were too much, and the old woody stems from last year have died.  Not to worry, there are lots of new stems that were safely underground.

I love the colors in these, which contract so well with the soft, light green colors of the rest of the new foliage.  While these are too dark to say they glow with color, the next photo shows something different.

The Spiraea x bumalda 'Goldflame' that grows on the edge of the slope behind the house seems to be lit up by fire.  The colors will fade down in a few weeks, but then the pink flowers will open up.  Now, I will admit that pink flowers above yellow orange foliage has led me to question holding onto this spirea.  But then each spring, before the grass turns green and most leaves are opening, this fluorescent display wakes me up from my winter doldrums, and I cannot imagine pulling it out.

To top it all off, these bushes are one of the few things that have survived a tough spot.  The hillside is a very sandy/gravely soil, with the full sun all morning drying it out.  I used to call this area my heather garden, but most of the heathers were killed by the extended cold, and those that still have live sections will need major pruning to get rid of the dead parts.  I have also had some success with lavender plants, but those were also severely hit by the cold.

The Viburnum 'Allegheny' is blooming again!  This time in the right season.  I like the contrast of the new flowers against the old, winter scarred leaves below.  In the background you can see the new leaves emerging, with their soft velvety surface.  This bush always surprises me.

Finally, the North Garden, between the house and the board fence on the property line, has a batch of trout lily, Erythronium ‘Pagoda’, at the base of a tree peony.  I so enjoy the bright color and upturned petals of these bulbs.  They proclaim that better weather is coming, and all will be well.