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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

Oriental spruce: Reliably Early, Reliabl...

The world is a crazy place, as evidenced by terrorism in Times Square and Thursday’s bomb scare in Portsmouth, NH. Hey, Portsmouth is practically my own backyard. In turbulent times, is there anything a peace-and-yoga-loving gardener like me can count on? Well, yes. Each spring, we can enjoy the bright yellow growth tips on Early Gold Oriental spruce (Picea orientalis ‘Early Gold’) a good two weeks earlier than those on the yellow-tipped cultivar ‘Aureospicata’. We grow ‘Early Gold’ in a sunny sloping bed on the west side of our...

Piedmont azalea thrives in Nashville...

Two weeks ago Carolyn Schmidt, my best childhood chum, walked with me around Cheekwood Botanical Garden in Nashville, looking at flowering trees and shrubs. The day would have been perfect even if we hadn’t seen breathtaking Piedmont azaleas blooming in the woodland garden. But we did, and their beauty stopped us on the shady path. It was the flowers that got us–deep pink buds and baby-pink, sweet-scented tubes with delicate stamens emerging from them like curly lashes. Piedmont azalea (Rhododendron canescens) is native to the southeastern USA, including...

The Thrill of Flowering Crabapples...

Pink crabapple petals drifted around me when I walked through Dianne Mrak’s Dover, NH garden the other day.  I’ve always liked these trees, which bloom in pink, white, or red, but in Diane’s garden I saw them in a new way–flowers deconstructing, petals floating on a breeze and quivering on the ground. My heart sang. Oh—crabapples can be wonderful plants if  you pick a good cultivar like Malus sargentii ‘Tina’, a dwarf cultivar with pink buds and white flowers. (Pick the wrong crab, and it’s a pain–all the woes of the...

Penny’s new website...

Welcome to my new website! I’d like to start a conversation with you about trees, shrubs, and their companions, and hear what you have to say. For me, not only are trees and shrubs key to low-maintenance, environmentally friendly landscaping, they’re also beautiful. Studying them calms and nurtures my soul. Explore plants, gardens and ideas from around the world and visit me in my...