Creating by copying

I asked my illustration instructor how to develop a style.  He said:  "Find someone you like, and copy their work - your style will emerge from that."  I took that advice to heart, and am applying it to my garden design.

One of my favorite places in the world is the Cleveland Botanical Garden.  I especially like their herb garden.

One of my favorite horticulturists is Penelope Hobhouse.   I took her advice on gardening in the spring to heart from her book Penlope Hobhouse on Gardening.  On a very hot spring day, I decided to renovate my pastel section of a long border according to her method, and to copy some of what I saw on my last trip to Cleveland.

Last year I planted shasta daisies in the front of the border.  They were nice and small, and looked appropriate.  This year, they got HUGE, and dwarfed the low-growing geranium cranesbill behind them.

I dug up everything in this section except for the delphinium and scilla in the back.  I removed as many weeds as possible, dug in several bags of compost, and leveled the area.  I also divided the perennials.

Here is where more copying comes in.  I liked how one of the herb beds was planted in Cleveland.  The herb germander was used to line the front of the bed.  And, stakes and twine were used to delineate precisely where other plants were going to go.

I did the same thing, although not as elegantly.

I also used a tape measure, twine, and garden stakes, and elbow grease to straighten out the whole border - it is actually 90 inches wide.   Neatness counts!    I put the plants back in - this time the shasta daisies are on either edge of the bed, and added five germander plants to the front of the border. 

I am waiting for the moved plants to adjust to transplantation before I mulch the area.  I will keep you posted on how everything does.

Color Scheming

Life has been crazy for the last few weeks, and will continue crazy for another few - so my posts will be spotty.  I did want to pass along some information/knowledge that I got from taking a fabulous color class at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, where I am working towards a certificate in Illustration.

The concept that I want to talk about is "push/pull".  It has to do with the impact of varying foreground and background colors and values.  In this example, which I created with Photoshop, I kept the foreground color, representing flowers, the same yellow.  The background color, representing foliage, I varied.

As you can see, there is great contrast in the bottom panel, little in the top.  Think about this contrast when you are choosing plants.  If the plant flower has too little contrast with the foliage, either in color or value (lightness or darkness), you  will not see the flower well.  Maybe that is what you are trying to achieve.  Just think about it - it may change the nature and look of your garden.

We Survived!

The winter of 22013-2014 was bad - I wrote about it a lot last Spring.  This past winter was worse.  The only saving grace was that we did not have lots of thaws and freezes - therefore, not much ice.  We had a prodigious amount  of snow, though - well over 100 inches.  The snow kept coming - we had four major snowstorms in four weeks.  All of this snow, and the Town of Wellesley's diligent snow plowing, left me despairing for my poor plants.

I did not think this rhododendron was going to make it - but it has.

Spring has finally arrived - a few weeks late - to New England.  Because it was tardy, all the plants seem to be playing catch up.  I am happy to report that my delphinium - not always able to overwinter, have survived (a consistent snow cover, and a mulch of Christmas tree branches applied after the ground was frozen, may have helped.)

Pollination

Here is an updated info graphic on pollination.  I left out some important information the first time.

Frost Warning

Last Sunday I received an alert on my cell phone that Wellesley was expected to get a frost that night.  I knew what I had to do that day besides watching football - get all of my porch and patio plants inside before nightfall.  Luckily, I have my husband to help - I cannot easily move the hibiscus, lemon tree, agapanthus or mandevilla.  I was able to move the orchids, Christmas cactus (it should be in bloom by Halloween),  and fuschias  into the house.  The geraniums that I keep on my front steps went into the garage.  My amaryllis plants that had been summering in the shade of a large ornamental grass were also brought into the garage.

Here is my one small lemon that I hope will grow big enough to be used.

I hope that this mandevilla is happier in my sunny den than the one I bought last year, which languished in my not-so-sunny bedroom.

We did not get a frost Sunday night.  That is good news for me, because it means that I can still harvest parsley, rosemary, cherry tomatoes, and maybe an eggplant or two.  I also have two dahlias that are budding but have not flowered yet.  My 'Silver and Gold' Chrysanthemum Ajania has not bloomed yet, and I am keeping my fingers crossed that it will soon.  I still have a few plants to move and some tidying up to do.  My husband was able to spread an organic lawn fertilizer a day before a Nor'Easter blew into town and dropped several inches of rain - which we have needed.

This post is probably my last for the season, although I am not promising that I will not post once in a while, especially if I get some eggplant or my chrysanthemum blooms.

Fall jobs

Most people look at gardening in the fall as "clean up" time.  I think of it more as "evaluate" time.  There is a relaxed pace to fall days - not so much planting and weeding and watering as in the spring and summer.  The last of the flowers are either blooming or about to bloom.  Everything is established.  Here are the jobs  I have come up with after taking a long, hard look at my growing environment.

1. Move.  Lots of perennials need to be moved.  I planted daisies in my pastel section in the spring, and they are very happy.  They would look better if I moved them over to the left a bit.  The lavender that is to their right has finally established itself, and the daisies are being crowded by it.

One of my favorite plants, asclepias tuberosa, (butterfly weed) spread a few years ago.  I am going to remove the plant that is in the front of the border, and move my sedum 'Autumn Joy" to where the asclepias  tuberosa was.  The sedum has been suffering because my anise hyssop has been so happy and is overshadowing the sedum.

I am also going to move some Russian sage that is in one of my sunny borders.  The plant has a lovely way of bending and bowing over its neighbors.  I like this effect more in the back of the border than in the front, where it tends to confuse the eye.

 

2. Fertilize.  I tested my soil recently and found that the earth was deficient in everything - nitrogen, phosphorous, and potash (potassium).  I will fertilize my beds and lawn in the next few weeks with organic fertilizer, and test again in the spring.  Once I get on a more regular feeding schedule, I hope that my lawn and perennials are happier.  I bought the testing kit at a local hardware store.  It helps to have distilled water and patience; other than that, testing is pretty easy.

3. Top dress.  I bought a few bags of good quality top soil, and spread it out thinly over the really sad parts of my lawn.  Two of the sections had been leveled, enhanced, and re-seeded in the last twelve months.  I don't think I did a bad job last year, I just think that the lawn was stressed by the harsh winter, the animals burrowing in the soil, and the very dry summer.  I did not spend lots of time top dressing, and I plan on buying several more bags of top soil to dress the rest of the lawn.  I did put down more grass seed, and the grass has sprouted.

4. Water.  We had a really dry summer.  There has been some rain in the last few weeks, which helps.  I still need to water, especially where I put down the grass seed.  The trees and shrubs need water, too.  Some of my rhododendrons look exhausted.

 

St. Louis

I am from the Midwest - Cleveland - and my daughters have gone to school in the Midwest.  My youngest is at Washington University in St. Louis, so I thought I would talk up the city.

Last year the Cardinals played the Red Sox in the World Series.  A few writers for the Boston Globe opined that there was nothing to do in St. Louis.  I will do my little part to correct that notion.  If you are from the East coast, and are most familiar with cities like Boston, New York, and Philadelphia, a city like St. Louis might seem awfully quiet.  The fact is, though, that a lot of Midwest cities were built and grew differently than East Coast cities.  A lot of the action takes place in neighborhoods.  Places like the Central West End, Maplewood, Soulard, South Grand, the Grove, the Hill, and the Loop, to name just a few.

St. Louis also looks different.  It seems like someone put part of New Orleans on a barge and shipped it north to St. Louis.  There is a charming mix of French style and arts and crafts buildings.

Finally, if you love gardens, you cannot help but be aware of Forest Park (bigger than Central Park in NYC), ant the Missouri Botanical Garden. Forest Park takes up a lot of space.  It includes a zoo, a golf course, the art museum (St. Louis Art Museum, or SLAM - bast acronym ever), the Muny (largest outdoor theatre in the country), the St. Louis Science Center and the Missouri History Museum.

My daughter and I visited the Missouri Botanical Gardens last fall, right before Haloween.  A costume party for kids was wrapping up, so the space was a combination of lively and serene.  The 79 acre site has conservatories, formal gardens, demonstration gardens and International gardens.  I especially liked the 14 acre Japanese strolling garden.  There are also Bavarian, Chinese, English Woodland, Ottoman and the Strassenfest  German Garden.

I highly recommend St. Louis as a travel destination, especially for gardeners.  And if you go, remember that there is lots more to the city than the Arch and Busch Stadium (both worth visiting, of course.)