“Tosca” and my fall garden...

In the Puccini opera “Tosca,” the artist Cavaradossi’s garden stands for love, beauty, desire, lushness, and passion. It’s the place where Cavaradossi and Tosca, the opera singer, first embraced. I’ve been thinking about this garden ever since seeing the Boston Lyric Opera production yesterday afternoon. I imagine that the artist’s garden, neither pictured nor described in the opera, is formal in outline and overblown in its proportions. At the BLO, Cavaradossi (tenor Richard Crawley) and Floria Tosca (soprano Jill Gardner) expressed...

Passionate pruner Pearl Fryar comes to D...

Pearl Fryar, a folksy self-taught topiary artist from Bishopville, SC, spoke recently at the University of New Hampshire in Durham. As luck would have it, I’m taking a course in landscape construction at the school and got to hear him speak. Fryar, subject of a documentary film, A Man Called Pearl, also demonstrated his technique by carving a potted Eastern arborvitae into a nascent spiral. In 1984 when Pearl moved to Bishopville (population c. 3,000 at the time), his goal was to win the town’s “Yard of the Month” award. He began to “cut up bushes,” he...

Stump for Paulownia...

“Eek, you’re showing my stump! That’s private!” the Princess wails. “Not exactly, Princess,” I reply. “I know you’re embarrassed, but hey. This is to sate the curiosity of tree folks everywhere.” What’s with my Paulownia tomentosa, you wonder? She liked the last blog, with a photo of her bumptious leaves, but today I’m writing about what’s underneath, and there isn’t much to admire. The photo shows her coppiced base. Three green stems at the back remain after I changed her form from a shrub to a...

Paulownia: A Princess with Laughable Lea...

“What’s a nice girl like me doing with a leaf like you?” I asked the biggest leaf on my princess tree (Paulownia tomentosa) the other day. “Whaddya mean?” she answered with attitude. “You’re wrinkled, you’re sticky, you’re big and hairy.What’s to like?” I replied. “You love me,” she said simply. And she was right. In my summer garden, I can’t resist a leaf that’s 33 inches long and 31 inches wide, even if ugly is one way to describe it. For me it’s a big deal. I live in New...

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...

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...

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,...

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...

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...

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...