That Pesky Pastel section

I have written at length about a part of my border that I find quite boring.  Things are beginning to change, though.  Plants are maturing and fulfilling their promise.  They have good, solid shapes.  There is a good flow to the design.  Plus, I have had some surprises.  First, the gaura survived, and it adds a graceful, airy element to the space.  My dahlias are blooming, and one is definitely not a pastel.  A delphinium that I planted in the Spring is re-blooming despite having been unceremoniously pruned by a varmint.

The group in the middle row, center is Chrysanthemum Ajania 'Silver and Gold'.  It isn't blooming yet (the flowers should be bright yellow), and I like it just fine without any flowers.  It has a good, well-behaved shape, and has a noticeable presence in the garden.  Plus, there is good flow.  As your eye moves from front-right to middle-center to front left you are following a path of grayed foliage.  There is no confusion in this scheme.  It is satisfying.

I did not pay much attention to the color of the dahlias when I planted them.  It is usually hot, I am in a hurry, and I always doubt whether they are going to grow or not.  This year, they grew.  One is tall and pink; the other is medium-height and orange with  a yellow center.  Luckily, my delphinium is also blooming.  The blue and orange are complements; I think they go together very nicely.

I like these colors together.

Late Summer

Late summer has its own type of beauty in the garden.  Less showy than spring and mid-summer, but perhaps more confident.  I like sedums for this time of year.  These plants have solid shapes and subtle coloring.  Here I have a picture of sedum 'Autumn joy' hiding under anisse hysop (which I will cut back as soon as it is clear of bees.)

The sedum flowers will become bronze-red.  I like them much more than the garish colors of mums that over-run garden centers in September and October.

I am yet again surprised by plants that I thought had died - asters.  They are a beautiful, vibrant hue; they do clash with the nearby rudbeckia.  Sometimes, those clashes are OK.

The part of my garden that I complain the most about - the pastel section - is vibrating with color.  One of the delphinium that I planted in the spring, and that was feasted upon by  a "varmint", has survived and bloomed.  Two dahlias that I bought at the Home Depot, and didn't think too much about, are also in flower.  The one in the foreground has a discordant color, but it will be beautiful in a vase.  My late Uncle Norm loved dahlias.  I am not such a big fan because they look best when you only see the flower - the stalk is not very attractive.  I have two dahlias in my other long border that have not bloomed yet.  Because they are in the back, the stalks will only bother my neighbors.

 

My pink turtlehead Chelone lyonii 'Hot lips' is in full bloom in my shade garden.  Pick this plant if you are looking for something other than astilbe or hosta in your less sunny sections.

 

Sadly, one of our peach trees had to be cut down.  It was so laden with fruit that a heavy rainstorm toppled the tree.  I hope that there is another peach tree in the neighborhood so that the other tree can be pollinated.  We will see what happens.  I think that we may have to plant another peach tree, and be more diligent about keeping it pruned.

My husband using the chain saw to cut down the tree

One Year Later

One year ago today I decided to celebrate my birthday by going to the garden center and buying some plants.  It was a bit melancholy because early September is at the tail-end of the season, and is a time that is treated like a lost child.  Making the best of the situation, I decided to take advantage of the end-of-season sales (at least 50% off everything.)

I bought a gaura linaheineri (white butterfly flower) to be placed in a pastel section of my border.  I knew that these perennials did not always survive the winter.  This past Spring, I concluded that, indeed, the gaura had not made it.

I have done a lot of work in that  area this year - moving plants, weeding, pruning.  I was quite surprised, then, when I saw a plant that I had not noticed all year - the gaura that I planted last year.

My plan last year was to have this flower be the centerpiece.  I am letting that idea go, just glad to see it blooming gracefully in my garden.

I also purchased a trellised Mandevilla, an annual in the Boston area.  It looked beautiful on my front porch in September and October.  We put it in our bedroom in the fall, hoping for the best.  The Mandevilla really did not make it.  I bought another one, that is quite happy on my really hot, really sunny roof deck.  This fall we will put it in our den, which gets lots of sun, and keep our fingers crossed.

I learned a lot from my experience of believing that a plant that I thought had died had actually soldiered on and survived.  I learned that actions we take do not always produce expected results.  Sometimes, maybe more often than not, patience is rewarded.

My Shade Garden in Late Summer

Last year I visited the Cleveland Botanical Gardens and took note of shade perennials that I was not familiar with.  When I came back to Wellesley, I purchased a few of these, and have been quite happy with them.  They have come into their own this year.  Coupled with a few other plants that I have had for years, I feel that my shade area can compete with other parts of the garden.

I already had liriope, two varieties of astilbe, Euroopean ginger, and hostas.  Hidden among all of these was a stokesia (Stokes' Aster), that I moved today.

I added a Yellow Waxbell Kirengashoma palmata.  This perennial gets to be a good size - mine is about 2 feet by 2 feet.  It has pale yellow-green foliage that is not acid; the flowers are a creamy yellow.  The foliage color and broad leaves, described as "maple-like", creates a nice effect in the border.  It is distinct enough from the surrounding plants that you really notice it - always helpful to "keep the eye moving", my mantra.

I also put in two windflowers (anemone), both of which appeared to have died over the winter.  As soon as it was warm enough in the spring, I bought another one Anemone 'September Charm'.   One of the plants from last year did indeed survive; it is not tall  yet, and not blooming.  Here is a picture of the one that is blooming.

I also bought a second Pink Turtlehead Chelone lyonii 'Hot lips'.  It isn't blooming yet.  The foliage is nice, regardless, and the plant has a good, neat shape.  When it blooms, the flowers are pink.  I will take a picture and post it when it does flower.

My liriope is blooming.  The purple flowers are far from spectacular, although they add interest to the plant.  Liriope is very popular in the Georgetown section of Washington, DC, mostly in foundation plantings.  I would love to move my liriope to my foundation beds, but it is very hard to divide, and even harder to move.  I would like to thin it out, though, perhaps in the Spring.

This post is going up a day late because I lost my phone and internet moments before I was going to publish.  Here are some pictures of the huge truck, and the telephone pole that came crashing down when he snagged the wires across the street.

Who says the suburbs aren't exciting?

I don't think the trucker had a very good night.

The Color Lavender in the Garden

In her magnificent book Colour in Your Garden (William Collins Sons and Co. Ltd., 1985), Penelope Hobhouse explains how color works, especially how colors interact with each other in the garden.  When I first studied this book (I must have read the chapter "The Nature of Colour" ten times before I understood it), the biggest practical takeaway I got was to put paler versions of a light color, such as yellow,  next to deeper versions of a dark color,  such as purple, next to each other.  Never, never, never should you put a deep yellow next to a pale purple.

Of course, I am not always totally logical, and my memory of what I have in specific spots can fade when I am eyeing a plant at the garden center.  Hence, the combination, shown below, of deep yellow black-eyed susan, next to anise hyssop.

This particular photo is off-balance.  However, the yellow flowers on the left will fade, and the sedum autumn joy to the right will bloom an almost burgundy red - creating a pleasing scheme.

Gestalt is important in design.  It is critical to look at the whole of a border, and not condemn based on a limited view.

In this picture, there are three distinct areas of lavender-grey.  The foreground is actually lavender.  The flowers are just starting to show.  When there are more flowers, this block of color will indeed be lavender.  In the middle ground I have Russian sage flopping over a mugo pine.  In the background is the anise  hyssop.  In this view, the interlude provided by the lavender colored plants gives the design balance, movement, and repetition.  It is thus relatively easy for your eye to figure out what is going on in the garden, and to keep your eye moving.

What Was She Thinking?

A part of my border I consider boring, and I have been fiddling with the area a lot this year.  Last summer I made several changes, including moving the medium height alchemilla (Lady's Mantle) to the back of the border because it spreads rapidly and looks awful after it has bloomed.  This year, I moved it back to the middle of the border because a delphinium in front of it survived the winter unexpectedly, grew tall, and bloomed spectacularly for weeks.  I took this success as a message from the gardening gods to move the Lady's Mantle.

I also got rid of an early-blooming, low-growing, spreading, messy-looking plant that may have been a veronica - I honestly am not sure what it is.  I moved three Knautia macedonica 'Thunder and Lightning' from the middle to the middle-front of the border.

You might think that my changes are a failure because the "before" pictures look pretty good.  I think that, given time, the new scheme will work out well.

Doesn't look too bad, but I was not happy.

Looks good - but I cheated with annuals and a good soaking.

Three weeks into the change - two dahlias are thriving, the soil is parched, the annuals aren't too happy, and I think I am going to like this arrangement.

On a different note, I have another picture of a hummingbird - this one is enjoying my Rose of Sharon.  And for those of you who were worried, my husband was able to affix the suction cups to my kitchen window, and the whole family has loved watching hummingbirds take advantage of the feeder.

 

Making Hummingbirds Happy

I love hummingbirds.  Who doesn't?  I had never seen one until a few years ago.  After that, I was hooked, and determined to provide hummingbirds a welcoming habitat.

There are two ways to attract hummingbirds.  The first is to get a hummingbird feeder.  I saw one at a friend's house that had suction cups that stick onto a window.  She said that you only need a day or two for the birds to find the feeder.

Most of what she said is true - but I had to enhance my environment to get the hummingbirds to notice my feeder.  I bought a few pots of colorful annuals, gazania, snapdragon, and vinca, and placed them near the feeder.  Then, I hung a fuschia  plant near the window.  In a few days, I had my first hummingbird visitor.

You have to be careful with feeders.  The sugar solution needs to be changed every three to four days.  It is easy to prepare - just add one cup of water to one quarter cup of sugar, and heat in a pot until the sugar is dissolved.  Once it has cooled, you can add it to your clean feeder.  Because you are using a sugar solution, you may also attract ants and insects.  Also, I am not having great luck with the suction cups.  The feeder was working just fine until I had to take it down when we had the house stained.  Since then, the cups keep slipping.  Somebody in my family will figure it out.

The purist's way to attract hummingbirds is to plant a garden with flowers and flowering shrubs that the hummingbird can feed from.  I have several of these in my garden.  My neighbor has several in his flower bed, and I have included a picture of his flowers.

His July garden is dominated by rudbeckia (commonly called black eyed susan), echinacea purpurea (purple coneflower), and the not-yet blooming coreopsis (I believe 'moonbeam"), also known as tickseed.

I have a different selection of flowers and shrubs in my border.  Althea (rose of sharon) is blooming profusely now, and the hummingbirds really like it.  They also use the branches to take a break from beating their wings.

There was a hummingbird feeding on the flowers' nectar, but unfortunately, I was not able to get a picture of it.  These shrubs come in lots of colors.  I would tend to stay away from the lavender ones; they tend to get a mauve tint that I don't find very attractive. 

The flower that I have had the most success with attracting hummingbirds is lobelia cardinalis.  The flowers are a beautiful, clear red, and you can easily see and photograph the birds because the plant is erect.

These plants like moist soil and they spread.  I don't mind the spread because they are good looking and distribute red throughout this particular bed.