Bouncingbet Bends My Back...

I’m no acrobat, but when it comes to weeding, I should be. A year ago, I agreed to have a local garden club tour my garden in mid-June. That, of course, meant weeding, weeding, weeding. Our bark-chip mulch had long ago decomposed, enhancing the soil and making perfect growing conditions for weeds of every kind among my trees, shrubs and groundcover swaths. I had trained myself not to notice, but with visitors scheduled to tour the premises, I could no longer ignore those unwelcome plants. Add to that a new patio projecting into the park-like bed design, and I actually wanted to weed. In addition, I was so excited about the  garden that I planned a garden open-house for neighbors and two outdoor dinner parties that same week. The garden had to look good.

Anyway, weeding in a squat agrees with me, as does weeding on my knees, but when it comes to standing, bending, and pulling weeds, forget it. Yet, what else can I do in an entry bed invaded by soapwort (Saponaria officinalis), also known by the charming moniker bouncingbet. As you can see in the photo, this European native grows all through my daylilies (Hemerocallis) and sea holly (Eryngium), and covers the arid space in front of the stone wall over the culvert. Do I care that squooshed leaves lather up, making a gentle soap for delicates, or that the 1-inch flowers are a pretty pale pink right now? No. I just want this 30-inch-high monster out of my garden. Man oh man, that plant is at the top of my frustrating invasives list. No matter how much you pull out, more will grow from tiny leftover chunks of its creeping rootstock. It also self-sows with abandon.

So I weeded and weeded. Bouncingbet is still growing furiously, and I’m in physical therapy for an achy back. But it was worth it for one glorious week, when my garden looked as perfect as it ever has. I revel in the memory and keep frolicking with eyes wide shut, now that the weeds are back.

First Look at Finished Patio...

Ta-da! Here’s a peek at my finished patio surrounded by new plantings. Note the small retaining wall. It holds back the soil from the downward slope of the property. The patio’s irregular curving shape, rather like a mitten-shaped sassafras leaf, harmonizes with curved beds and retaining walls elsewhere in the landscape. How thrilling! I adore watching the plants grow and soften the hardscape.

By the way, if you’re near Raleigh, NC tomorrow, I’ll be speaking at Quail Ridge Books in the Ridgewood Shopping Center, 3522 Wade Avenue, at 7:30 PM. Drop by–I’d love to see you!

A Man and His Trees...

Does size matter? Sometimes, in my opinion. When I first saw Ron Dalrymple’s garden in southern Maine, I knew he was a kindred spirit because his garden is full of interesting trees and shrubs–not just interesting but also big. Near his driveway stand some doozies like an old silvery Korean fir (Abies koreana ‘Silberlocke’), two Hinoki cypresses (Chamaecyparis obtusa ‘Crippsii’ and ‘Reis Dwarf’) and a couple of 20-foot Japanese umbrella pines (Sciadopitys verticillata), quite impressive compared with my Sciadopitys, planted about 15 years ago and roughly 8-10 feet tall.  His Chamaecyparis ‘Reis Dwarf’ rises above the eaves of his house.

But good trees come in small sizes too, and his weeping Skylands Oriental spruce is a charmer about 30 inches high. He grows it in a woodland area of his garden, where it’s protected from late spring frosts and harsh winter winds. This tree is a slow-growing, droopy version of the gold-tipped upright Picea orientalis ‘Skylands’. Weeping Skylands is a rare conifer. Some of Ron’s other distinctive plants include a ginkgo with yellow variegation (G. biloba) and an Eastern hemlock cultivar with congested foliage (Tsuga canadensis). Nowadays, you can find plants like Japanese umbrella pine, Silberlocke Korean fir, and Cripps Hinoki cypress in nurseries with an affluent clientele, so they’re not as unusual in northern New England home gardens as they were when Ron planted his trees. But Ron’s trees have the allure of maturity. He’s had them for years; he even dug them up and trucked them to a new house a few years ago. I can see how my trees will look years from now, and I like it.

Patio Redux...

I love watching the patio take shape, seeing it reach into our parklike garden of tree and shrub borders. The stonemasons – Dean, Jeremy, and Rolf –  bring hard work, good humor, and creativity to the job. Laying the bluestone was the most exciting day of the project for me: For the first time, my patio existed in time and space. I walk on the hard stone and enjoy its blue, gray, brown, and yellow tints.

A Lady Who Loved Lady-Slippers...

Lynne, my dear friend and client, died suddenly and peacefully on Memorial Day. Lynne loved her garden and buying plants for it. Yet her favorite plant, which she protected wherever it grew, occurred in wild abundance on her land. The pink lady-slipper (Cyprepedium acaule) is a native orchid that blooms atop a leafless stem in mid to late May. The flower resembles an inflated pink pouch with dark pink veins.

A day or so after her passing, I asked her family if I could take one last walk around her cherished garden, and they kindly agreed. I ambled along the wood-chip paths made from downed trees on the property. Lynne and I had designed these paths to follow winding deer trails that already existed, and Jason Funk installed them. (Jason, now in the Peace Corps, has a profound empathy for nature and a powerful work ethic.)  We loved working together, the three of us, and each step I took reminded me of these happy garden days.

In the next moment, I saw it–the last lady-slipper of the season, perhaps slightly faded but still in flower. It grew by the path with Canada mayflower (Maianthemum canadense) and lowbush blueberries (Vaccinium angustifolium) on a dry acidic slope. Surrounding trees, including hemlock (Tsuga canadensis), white pine (Pinus strobus), red oak (Quercus rubra), and sweet birch (Betula lenta), created dappled shade–the right amount of light for a lady-slipper to thrive. My sense of loss at Lynne’s death had been sharp when I started walking on that little path, but when that lady-slipper nodded at me, I knew Lynne was here, and I felt better.

Patio Progress...

Step two, sod lifting, is complete. We saved some sod for lawn repairs and topsoil for beds that I’ll make on the periphery to soften the bluestone perimeter.  In laying out the patio,  we took into account the wellhead, which is close to the house, and the budget, which determined the patio’s relatively small, 200-square foot size.

Note the Grade...

As you can see from the photo, the grade slopes down and away from the house, as you’d expect, and down from the back of the lot toward the house. The two down slopes meet near the house, forming a  swale slightly tipped toward the far side of the property. Runoff flows in that direction, toward a rain garden farther down the slope.

A Patio – At Last!...

For 17 years, I dreamed of sipping coffee on a patio after my morning walk. Pretty soon I’ll be doing just that. Why put off building a patio for such a long time? Kids, college, and other priorities such as buying plants and painting the house came first. But now’s the time to take action. Dean Ludington, my favorite stonemason, is doing the job with his capable crew of two. They started last Saturday and should finish next weekend. In honor of making my own dream come true, I’ll follow my patio’s progress in this blog.

Step one was coming up with a workable, affordable design. Challenges include the subtly sloping grade, an adjacent border expansion deep enough to accommodate the installation of a generator, plus planting beds to soften the bluestone’s hard edge. I changed my mind at the last minute and moved the patio closer to the back door just in time for step two, lifting the sod. Is that coffee I smell brewing?

Long Live Live-Oak...

The food was fabulous, the music hot, but it was the DeBore oak in Audubon Park, New Orleans, which filled me with awe on a recent trip. This live oak (Quercus virgianiana), located near Audubon Park Zoo and Exposition Boulevard, has a trunk circumference of 35 feet 2 inches at chest height and a canopy spread of 165 feet.

Planted more than 250 years ago, it has stunning looks and a fine pedigree that dates back to the plantation of Etienne de Boré, a former New Orleans mayor who brought vital sugar-granulation technology to Louisiana. Landscape architect John Charles Olmsted, nephew and stepson of Frederick Law Olmsted, incorporated the tree into the park’s design.

The architecture of this ancient evergreen is baroque—bold, dramatic, irregular, with awe-inspiring twists, ripples, and curves. A couple heavy limbs rest on or partly in the ground, while those growing above ground seem to strain under their own mass. Silvery Spanish moss, a flowering plant that lives on live oak (epiphyte), trails over the branches.

Live oaks are not just well bred and good looking, they’re also tough. Look at the allée along New Orleans’ St. Charles Avenue. For the most part, it has survived floods, hurricanes, and urban pollution. Native to the southeastern United States, they flourish in humid air and moist, well drained soils in USDA Zones (7b)8-11.

I love this shrub: Mohican Wayfaringtree...

At one time or another I’ve grown about 20 viburnum cultivars with varying success. I bought Viburnum ‘Eskimo’, a hybrid, at a local nursery years ago without looking up the growing information, and this Zone 6 shrub failed after a few years in my Zone 5b garden. Then there was V. dentatum ‘Synnesvedt’ (Chicago Lustre), which thrived and thrilled the birds until Viburnum leaf beetles arrived a couple of years ago and ate it up. That’s out now. V. dentatum ‘Blue Muffin’ never lived up to its hype in my garden. It grew weedy and it’s out too.

But let’s talk about a favorite, V. lantana ‘Mohican’. With its perfect oval habit and dense branching, this shrub is a winner in my book (literally–check p. 360 in The Homeowner’s Complete Tree & Shrub Handbook). This is an absolutely wonderful, low maintenance shrub for deciduous hedging. Leaf beetles leave mine alone, and I pruned it this year for the first time in 15 years. The photo above shows my plant blooming in May. Although descriptions say that Mohican holds its red-orange fruit longer than other wayfaringtrees–4 weeks or more according to Michael Dirr–I haven’t seen it on my plant, where fruits rapidly turn black. I don’t grow this plant for fruits anyway, so it’s no loss to me. No, I grow Mohican viburnum for its lovely form and thick, dark green, trouble-free leaves.