Perfection in the Garden

There is a garden that I drive by frequently that is almost perfect.  It has just the right amount of balance - tall grasses balance beautifully with shrubs; white clumps of impatiens are placed throughout the border, keeping your eye moving, not stuck.

There are two problems with this perfection, though.  One, it is static.  There has been no change for months, not even a stray weed appearing.  Second, I have never seen anyone in the garden, admiring it, or enjoying it, or working in it.  Its beauty and perfection are sad rather than joyful.

I much prefer a small garden that I often walk past. It is sometimes messy, but always boisterous.  Black eyed susan, purple coneflower, ornamental grasses co-exist with weeds.  I get the feeling that this owner sees something she loves and plants it -  whether it "goes" or not.  This is a happy, messy place - a place with  love.

I have included a picture of one of my own garden borders.  I have to move the Russian sage (that droopy, gray-purple flower in the center) to the back so that I can really see the deep green-blue herb with pink flowers in front of it (I wish I know the name - it might be a thyme).

You also see the white house behind the border, and often a car or two.

Clearly, this image is not magazine-ready.  It is a source of joy for me though - colorful, dynamic, full of life - the way a garden should be.  (We have planted three tiny arborvitae in the back - some day the white house won't be so obvious.)

Going on Vacation

My husband and I leave tomorrow for a much needed vacation to sizzling Washington, DC (to see our daughter), and the Jersey shore (Cape May, not Wildwood).  My computer is on my 3rd floor, which at 10 AM is a comfortable 90 degrees.  At 3 this afternoon, I plan to bake bread on the windowsill.

Before I leave, I want to show a gift from my husband.  We bought a cut-leaf maple several years ago and planted it in a shady part of the garden between two patios.  The tree was surrounded by a motley grouping of hosta and sweet woodruff.  A few years ago, my husband decided to re-arrange the hostas into groupings.  The yellow-green hostas are in the front of the tree - they were all over the place before he got to work.  The same with the sap green hostas to the left.  You could barely see the sweet woodruff.  What he achieved is an almost perfect design.  There is change of texture and color (from the maple down to the hostas, then finally down to the sweet woodruff).  There are big enough blocks of each plant or planting to satisfy the eye.  The beauty of the maple stands out because of this arrangement.  By the way, the sweet woodruff and hosta will spread.  However, the way this area is arranged it will not be a problem.  Each species is robust enough to stand up to its aggressive neighbor.

Here is another picture.  Unfortunately, my photographs do not do justice to the scene.

Finally, I need to add a few pictures of filipendula.  In my post on same, I blathered on and on about how gorgeous the pink of the flower is.  You may have been scratching your head at that one.  That photo was taken before the flower had really hit its stride.  Here are two more photos that do more justice to its glorious pink color.   

No Pictures Today, Folks

Here I go with my Losers.  I have no pictures, because these plants are no longer in my garden.  I had a beautiful watercolor of one of them, but I cannot find it.

My first loser is Hollyhock.  A truly old-fashioned flower - tall spikes with flowers that resemble roses - these flowers made me think of drinking lemonaid  while sitting on a wicker settee on my porch back in 1890.  They were a wonderfully evocative flower for me until they were beset by the inevitable RUST.  Even my internist at the time said "Hollyhock - oh yes, RUST."  Once the rust set in, they were awful (if my memory serves me right).

My second loser is perennial salvia.  Again, a very pretty flower, not unlike my favorite veronica  (only salvia is purple).  Once the flowers are gone, the plant degenerates into a lot of dead-looking stuff.  I suppose if you had a huge border you could tuck it in somewhere and let other plants grow over it - although nobody seems happy when crowded out.  If you really want a purple flower, go for the annual heliotrope.

Coreopsis is a good looking plant, and there are several different varieties with very different foliage - some needle-like (they aren't sharp, just look like needles), such as "moonbeam".  Others look more like daisies.  The problem with these plants is that grasses grow up easily around and through them.  This problem leads to my worst sin in gardening (besides symmetrical balance, not watering hydrangeas when it is really hot out,  an indiscriminate use of herbicides and pesticides, and of course, a willful ignorance of what works and doesn't work in the garden) - where was I?  Oh yes, the specific problem of grasses growing up through plants and the general problem of "confusing the eye".  Coreopsis is a really lovely plant, and it even looks OK after flowering - it has a good shape, it is well behaved (doesn't spread).  But, I have spent hours trying to yank all the grasses out from around these plants - never to succeed - even with people helping me.  Thus, the tragic problem of having a wonderful plant rejected because of its unruly neighbors.  I just cannot tolerate those grasses ruining my pleasure.  I actually get anxious when I see a messy garden - my eye cannot enjoy the flowers because it gets stuck on that part of the garden that it cannot figure out - "what the heck is going on over there?"

Monarda has a very pretty red or pink flower that butterflies love; once the flowers are gone, so are the butterflies, and the plant starts to mildew and look awful.  Plus, it spreads.  Just what everybody wants, spreading mildew.  (This is the plant that I have a watercolor of.  If I ever find it (probably when we move), I will post it.)