Do you have a plant that makes you feel good when you look at it?

According to the folks at Washington State University, ‘Chief Joseph’ grows slowly (about 2 to 4 inches per year) to 6 feet high and 3 feet wide in 10 years. This lodgepole pine, discovered in northeastern Oregon’s Wallowa Mountains, is hardy in USDA Zones 5 to 9.

Do you have a favorite winter tree or shrub?

At the BLO, Cavaradossi (tenor Richard Crawley) and Floria Tosca (soprano Jill Gardner) expressed their doomed passion with operatic perfection. The heat of their attachment contrasted with the evildoing of the sadistic Baron Scarpia (Bradley Garvin.) But it’s the garden references that stick in my mind. Why? My garden is also lush and beautiful, and I feel passionate watching my plants grow and change through the seasons.

For me, no season is more fragile and striking in its beauty than autumn, especially after the leaves have changed color but before they start to fall from the trees. I decided to share with you a photo that evokes the fullness and passion of fall. The red trees are cutleaf fullmoon maple (Acer japonicum ‘Aconitifolium’), Heart Throb kousa dogwood (Cornus kousa ‘Heart Throb’), and sourwood (Oxydendron arboreum). The lemon yellow shrub is Witches Broom ginkgo (Ginkgo biloba ‘Witches Broom’), the golden trees in the distance are sugar maple (Acer saccharum), and the fine-textured, bronze and green trees in front of the sugar maples are bald cypress (Taxodium distichum). There’s opera in my garden, starring lushness and color that are all the more poignant because they cannot last.

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 says, to reach his goal. Now the Garden Conservancy has anointed his 3-acre garden a Preservation Project, and Fryar speaks around the country about the whimsical green sculptures he creates from plants ranging from boxwood (Buxus spp.) and holly (Ilex spp.) to pine (Pinus spp.) and firethorn (Pyracantha spp.) Half his plants are castoffs from a local nursery.

Pruning is Pearl’s passion, and he does it every four to six weeks with the help of one apprentice. “If you have to rake clippings after pruning, you waited too long to prune,” he says. He uses no chemical sprays or fertilizer and attributes the health of his garden to digging six-inches deep trenches around his topiaries and filling them with pine straw before setting out the plants.

The results achieved by this self-taught “outsider,” or folk artist, are striking. Although some topiaries are representational (an elephant, a mushroom cap) or nearly geometrical (a spiral), many resemble snaky, twisting abstract expressionist sculptures. Both his topiaries and the funky mobiles and sculptures he makes from found objects express his underlying philosophy of peace, hope, and love. Pearl is a speaker whose enthusiasm and good intentions are hard to resist.

He replied fast: “Wrong plant,” and sent the photo above. It was back to the beginning for me.

Yet the annual meeting of the Garden Writers Association was just a week away in sunny Dallas, where I hoped to see Brent Heath, an amazing plantsman, bulbophile, and owner with his wife of Brent and Becky’s Bulbs. I stopped Brent on a steamy Dallas garden tour and showed him this photo. Without a pause he said, “This is morea iris.” Sure enough, I looked it up and he was right (of course!) The mystery was solved. Morea, also known as Dietes bicolor or African iris, is an evergreen perennial. Each 2-inch wide flower lasts one day. White or pale yellow blooms with three reddish brown marks occur in groups every couple of weeks, giving the plant its other name, fortnight lily. Hardy in Zones 9-11, this iris forms big, 2 to 3-foot high clumps of skinny swordlike leaves. It is somewhat drought tolerant once established but blooms better with moisture. Morea iris may self-sow but flowers more when seed pods are removed. I can grow it as an annual in a cold climate like New Hampshire, if I can find a reliable source. Thank you, Brent, for sharing with me your vast knowledge of plants.

Is there a mysterious plant in your life?

“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 multi-stem tree. You can see green stubs from shoots I removed this season in the foreground and upper right. The brown woody stubs are shoots cut back in previous years. Daylilies and climbing hydrangea grow around and over the stump.

“Are you done yet, you awful human? Haven’t you seen enough?” sighs the Princess.

“Oh I’m done, my pretty,” I say, respecting her need for privacy. We both know that her robust shoots and leaves will wither soon, and the stump that she decries will be her public face until next May.