Some Keys to Good Design

I have written in earlier posts that it is important to think about keeping the eye moving when designing a garden.  That goal is important in any type of visual design, whether it applies to a landscape, a painting, or an interior.  You also want to keep the eye moving so that it does not wander off onto something else, like the house across the street.  Visual artists learn how to keep the viewer's attention on the canvas or paper, gardeners can learn these lessons, too.

This week I am going to focus on  using foliage color to both keep the eye moving, and keep the eye in the garden.  Once the growing season starts, leaf hue remains pretty constant (there are exceptions, of course, but not in this illustration.)

I have used bronze-red foliage in three areas of one of my big borders (but not so big that you cannot view the whole at once.)

This schematic shows the rough layout of my border.  There are large shrubs (a buddleia to the rear left, and a Rose of Sharon to the rear right, as well as three evergreens in the back.)  The red areas on the right are heucheras; the red on the left is lysimachia  ('firecracker' loosestrife).  In the front left (shown in green), I have seathrift, which should have red foliage, but was so badly damaged this winter that the foliage looks dead, even though the plant is flowering.

The shrubs along the perimeter are big enough that they help rein in the eye and keep it in the border.  The red foliage leads your eye around the border.  Please note:  If there were only one area of red, your eye would most likely get stuck where the red is. 

Almost any foliage color could be used to keep the eye moving.  Silver is a good option.  I like red, because it balances well with the dominant green of the grass and the other foliage.  Green and red are complements (opposite each other on the color wheel), and therefore provide excellent color balance.

Springtime Gardening - the Agony and the Ecstasy

Spring is both a time of drudgery and pleasure in my garden.  I have given myself the task of improving one section of my lawn each year.  Last weekend, I took care of a patch of grass that has never really looked good.

If the grass looks this bad in May, it is going to look much worse come July.  A big part of the problem is that the earth was never properly leveled.   There is a slight rise where you see bare soil.  As a result, every time I mow the lawn, the grass is shaved instead of cut.

I spent  last weekend preparing the site for new grass seed.  First, the easy part.  I bought  five bags of garden soil and  brought it home.  Next, the hard part.  I used two rakes, one with three prongs, to till the soil.  Lucky for me, it started drizzling as I raked, making the soil easier to work with.

As you can see, I dug up a lot of the grass and clover (good for your lawn - it fixes nitrogen from the air and makes it available to the roots.)  Then I used my flat rake to spread the soil and make the area as flat as possible.

At this point, it's  a good idea to leave everything alone overnight.  The next day, I was able to see what sections had dried out, and which were still moist.  The dried out sections are still too high and need to be raked flat.

It has been my experience that a level lawn grows best.  And grass, unlike water, does not find its own level.  If you don't do it, your lawn will not magically smooth out.  I will keep you posted on the scintillating progress of my lawn (I seeded it a few days ago.)

Now, for the fun stuff.  I have been telling people about my tree peonies and discovering that they are not commonly known.  I have two of these woody plants in shady parts of my garden.  Here are some pictures.

 The harsh winter did not kill these buds.

I took this picture today.

This one is a little further along than the other.

The bloom time is not long, and if we get a hot spell, even if for a day, the flowers fall off.  This spring the conditions have been good, and I will be able to enjoy them for a while longer.

I also mentioned scilla in a recent post.  Here is a picture of one in bloom.

This scilla is happily nested in a festuca.  After it finishes blooming, I will move it to the back of my border so that I can enjoy my front-of -the -border ornamental grass.

Assessing the impact of a long, hard Winter and a late Spring.

This should be my last post about the HORRIBLE winter we just endured, and its impact on everything.  Forgive me, but this post is going to be long, because there was a shocking amount of damage - and - a few benefits - to the bad weather.

First, the benefit.  All of my bulbs bloomed at the same time.  One of my borders was decorated with tall red tulips, frilly, cream-colored daffodils, and standard white daffodils.  The sight was very pretty for a few weeks.

Now, the not-so-great stuff.  First, one of my granite steps cracked.  Who knew?

All I have to do is find a contractor who is eager for a really tiny job.  The plant on the step, by the way, is a geranium that I over-wintered in the garage.  It gets no water, no love, and looks awful until mid-June.  Then, I have a happy flowering plant.  I have several of these on my front steps, and rarely lose any.

Next, I have a mystery survivor.  In my last blog I lamented the passing of two anemone plants and a yellow waxbell.  Today I was putting in some coleus plants in the shade border, and came across a vigorous root and some growth.  Back it went into the ground, behind the coleus, coy about its identity.  Only time will tell.

I am happy to report that my European ginger (some call it ornamental ginger), is finally happy and robust in my shade border.  I planted some tuberous begonias behind the ginger.  I think that the combination is elegant.

Back to the sad stories.  My lilac has reliably bloomed and perfumed my backyard ever since one of my daughters brought it home from school on Arbor Day.  This year I thought a bouquet of lilacs and daffodils would look nice in my green Depression glass vase (thank you Maureen S).  I looked out my window, and saw few blooms, and none within arms length.  No old-fashioned bouquet today.  Let's hope for better luck next year.

 

Walking along my sunny border, I noticed some very sickly looking plants - I thought they were annuals.  They are actually dianthus and look as though someone poured salt on them.  I think that they will make a comeback.

(The weeds surrounding them seem pretty happy.)

Every year, regardless of what type of winter we have, a few lupine die.  This year was no different.  Lupines are a flower that fit into my category "Worth the bother".  Even though I have to replace a few every year, they bloom early, and the foliage is truly ugly after the bloom, I love them. The flowers buds open up slowly along the stem of the plant, and they come in rich, saturated jewel colors.  I will happily drive to the garden center and purchase a few more.

The same border with the dianthus and lupine also has the reliable plant (and herb) achillea yarrow.  A little less reliable this year, though, as one of the plants did not make it (I know because the interior of the border has plants placed in threes, and there are only two yarrow.)

 

I have three choices for action regarding the empty spot:  Do nothing;  buy another plant, and hope it matches the ones already  there; or, divide one and put one of the halves into the empty space.

The third option seems best.  Perennials should be divided every few years anyway, it is the cheap option, and the plants will match.  Neither  may make it - a risk I am willing to take.  I will keep you posted.

Changes is afoot

C'est dommage!  That's what I tell myself in May when what I planted in September is killed off by brutal winter weather - and what appears  to have been frost heaves, even though they didn't seem possible this winter.  The Gaura linaheimeri 'stratosphere white' that I placed as a focal point plant in my pastel bed did not disappoint the pessimist in me - it died.  I have had limited success with gaura in the past; they sometimes overwinter, but eventually, they give up the ghost.

My asters died too.  I keep hoping that they will be happy in my garden - but they seem to want no part of it.  The only asters that thrive are the plain Jane natives, tucked away in a dark corner. 

I've lost my windflowers Anemone 'September Charm'.  I may try one of these in the shady section of my border.  As I wrote in an earlier post, they get big.  I  hope this plant works out - it is good in the shade, has attractive flowers and leaves, and blooms late (especially good in the shade, as most of the common shade flowers peak in early summer.)

I am pretty sure that I lost my Yellow Waxbells Kirengeshoma palmata, although something is growing there - I am just not sure what. 

One of the reasons for my insouciance for all of this loss is that I have a consciously designed garden (unlike, say, a cottage garden).  Every spot has a purpose, which makes fixing last year's failures a little easier.  After the initial disappointment and shedding of a tear or two, I get to work filling in the empty space.

A few days ago I filled in all of the gaps created  by the recently departed gaura, aster, pincushion flower, and one or two delphinium..  From left to right in the front row I have the always hardy festuca, followed by three recently planted shasta daisies Leucanthemum 'White breeze', and three lavender plants (they are finally happy - be patient with them.)

In what may be called row 1-B, I have magenta cranesbill geranium.  These spread, but are easily kept in check.  They bloom profusely for about a month in early summer.  Cut them back aggressively after they bloom and you will get a second, albeit less impressive, flowering.
 
In the next row, left to right, three plants that I will have to wait on to determine what they are!.  Next are two chrysanthemum Ajania 'Silver and gold' (fall bloomers), and three Knautia macedonica 'Thunder and lightning (reddish purple flowers - should go well with the chrysanthemum.)

In the back row are scilla (a bulb, the most spectacular blue I have ever seen), poppies, delphinium and lady's mantle.  The poppies and scilla bloom early.  The lady's mantle has a chartreuse flower and spreads - which is why it is in the back.  I am happy that one of my delphinium survived the winter - they tend not to overwinter well in my garden.

Because we had a truly hard, long winter, everything appeared late.  If you have been following my blog since the beginning, you know that my favorite plant is asclepias tuberosa.  The flowers are the most gorgeous orange, they attract butterflies, and they thrive under my Japanese maple.  However, they appear really late, even in a normal Spring,  I am always careful when doing my first clean-up in March or April  not to disturb the area where these plants live.  I was getting worried, though, because as of May 1, I still had not seen any growth.

Voila!  (my last French word in this post, I promise), I recently spied two asclepias  tuberosa plants emerging through the dirt.  And here is a picture, in the event that you decide to treat yourself to this plant, and wonder where the heck it is, and what it looks like, next spring.

  

Spring arrives - better late than never

It is early May, 2014, and Spring is finally, really, definitely here.  I start this season with a discussion of fruit trees because they are in spectacular bloom right now, and because time-is-a -wastin'.

One of two plum trees

This plum tree, in spectacular flower, gives the neighborhood an exotic reminder of the snowy winter we just endured.  Everything was late this Spring - I did not see any crocuses until early April - but the plants are making up for lost time.

With limited time, choices have to be made about where you devote your energy.  We have four fruit trees - 2 plums and 2 peaches, several raspberry bushes and a few blueberry bushes.  They all need attention NOW  if we want to be eating fruit later in the season.

I bought my husband a book called The Holistic Orchard, Tree Furits and berries the Biological Way  by Michael Phillips because I wanted to get away from all of the pesticides and man-made fertilizer we had been using.  Plus, we had one really good year, followed by one really bad year, and I wanted to see if there was a way to have more really good years without decimating the environment.

The book is full of information - more than I will ever be able to use.  However, there are two practices I am using to encourage a higher fruit yield.

The first is encouraging fungal growth on the surface around the tree and below ground at the tree's  roots.  You do want to promote this growth, contrary to what just about everybody believes about fungus.  Fungus below the ground actually increases the root system's ability to absorb nutrition exponentially.  More nutrition, happier, more productive tree.

One of the simplest ways to promote these fungi is to apply ramial wood chips around the base of the tree in the spring.  Ramial wood chips are small clippings from deciduous trees - no more than an inch in diameter.  If you prune your trees and you have all of those little pieces, put them around your fruit trees and bushes.  The thin pieces of wood have a relatively high concentration of nitrogen.  As the wood on a tree gets older and thicker, the relative concentration of nitrogen goes down and the concentration of carbon goes way up (which is why it is good to burn big pieces of wood).

 
Here is a picture of the area around my plum tree - I will be adding more tomorrow.

It helps to have a bored college student around to cut all of the little branches into sections around 6" long.  Thank you Becky.

Tomorrow, I will spread all of the wood chips I have around my remaining trees and bushes.

The second thing I do (or rather, my husband does), is spray the tree and the ground around it with neem oil.  This job should have been started in March, but since it was really cold in March, the job will have to be done this weekend.  The neem oil  helps jolt the tree with nutrition after the long winter.

I suggest that you get and read The Hollistic Orchard   if you are interested in growing fruit trees and bushes.

One last note about fungus.  Obviously, not all fungi are good.  If you have a healthy plant, and a healthy environment, it is easier to promote the good fungi and minimize the bad.