Truth In Gardening

From year to year my enthusiasm varies for getting back into the garden after a long winter nap.  This year I have lots I want to accomplish and I'm excited about the changes I plan to make.  When it comes to the garden, historically I bite off more than I can chew, but at this juncture I'm confident that 2013 may be one of my best garden years yet! 

Last Saturday I got outside for the first garden work day of the season.  Most of the garden areas were either snow covered or too wet to work, so I decided to tackle the much neglected dry in the winter, even drier in the summer weed pit behind my garage.

As my grandfather would have said, "Criminentlies!"

For the past few years I have largely ignored this area.  Given the conditions, I'm amazed that anything grows here on what appears to be an artificially raised patch of land in the dry shade of locusts and white pines.  A thicket of pricker bushes, a tangle of poison ivy and lack of time has kept me at bay.  Oh and the snakes.  Have I mentioned that I hate dislike snakes?  One of the benefits to working in early March is the creepy little buggers are usually still sleeping.

In my defense, this is not my property and by the time I finish maintaining the gardens I do have on my property I don't usually have any time left.  However, since this patch of land is only accessible from my property, if I don't maintain it, nobody will.

Standing in the work area you get a direct view of the back of my garage.  To a certain extent this location falls into the category of "out of sight, out of mind".  But it shouldn't.

Take a gander to the right and the shed garden is in full view.

My goal for the day was to get rid of the thorn bushes, which I believe are some sort of wild raspberry, although I don't ever recall seeing fruit.  The arching canes root at every spot where they touch ground.  To get them out I had to section back each stem until I got to the root then either gently pull them out or use the shovel to dig them out.  Progress was slower than I expected.  After a few hours I had infiltrated the tangled mess and was able to walk through the two Locust tree trunks for the first time in years.

But I still had a long way to go.

Criminentlies!

Buried beneath the weedy mess is a tarp covered pile of topsoil.  My goal is to extricate the tarp, level out the soil, plant a row of Thuja plicata 'Green Giant' and attempt to manage the potential for weed regrowth with heavy mulch.  Most likely additional top soil will have to be brought in to create a berm of sorts because less than a foot below the surface is what appears to be a base of trap rock.

By late afternoon I had removed the thicket along with some Rosa multiflora and tons of Bittersweet.  I was able to walk back by the fence and pull out most of the dead branches that have collected over two hurricanes and a fall snow storm.  Poison ivy is a problem in this area and I am very allergic.  By some stroke of luck, I managed to avoid contact but I may have to wait for things to leaf out before attempting to remove more of the ground weeds.

As I widen out the view you can see why I'm so eager to manage this area and create a solid screen.  I mentioned before that I live behind a small shopping plaza. 

When I bought this house in 1995 the plaza was completely screened by a 30-40 foot tall hedge of hemlocks (Tsuga canadensis).  Unfortunately before I even knew it existed, wooly adelgid killed those trees and they had to be removed.  When the deciduous trees leaf out the view fades somewhat but last summer the plaza removed most of the small saplings on the other side of the fence and opened up the view beyond my tolerance level.

Despite the view, for the most part, the plaza isn't a bad neighbor to have.  In my town the alternative would most likely be the backyard decks of two or three homes peering right on to my patio.  As it stands right now, I enjoy almost complete privacy.  The area I'm attempting to maintain is located on a 25 foot strip of zoned buffer property.  Not a bad deal really-I can use it and someone else pays the taxes.

Below is a view from my shed garden back to the area I just cleared.  Years ago the wood fence sections were attached to an existing chain link fence to stop the dogs from barking at anything that moved and to create privacy at the ground level. 

   


Up until the spring of 2009, this area was heavily shaded by a huge Sycamore tree.  Growing evergreens was virtually impossible.  In the spring of 2010 I planted a trio of Thuja plicata 'Green Giant' on five foot centers mostly to see how they would perform.  Conditions that year were extremely dry and despite regular watering, I lost one of them before the end of the summer.  The remaining two have grown a respectable couple of feet since.

In 2004 I planted eight of these along my driveway and some of them are close to 20 feet tall now and doing well.  I would be thrilled to get that kind of growth from the trees behind the shed and garage but the conditions are drier and shadier.  Even so I still believe the Green Giants are my best choice for a solid evergreen screen.   



 

 

 

 

So there you have it.  Up until now I've only shown my garden from the best possible angles.  Every property has positives and negatives.  All things considered I'm happy with the location of my house and garden but I consider this view a big negative.

 

In the next few weeks I plan to start preparing the planting site and purchasing the trees I need.  If anyone has suggestions on screening a large ugly view like this I'd love to hear them.

 

Sue~

 

 

 

 

 

Making a List...

January is almost over and I'm already itching to get out in the garden again.  In a way I'm relieved.  Most years I'm chomping at the bit relatively early but every so often I come out of the winter with little interest in gardening.  Fortunately years like those are few and far between and once I start seeing green again I always snap out of it.

What scares me is when I think about what would happen if I decided I no longer wanted to garden or if something happened to me that would prevent me from gardening.  Most likely only a matter of months would pass before my entire property would become an impenetrable jungle, a poster property for blight ordinance enforcement.  Does anybody else ever worry about this?

For the past week it's been colder than a witches...brew around here.  Even with sunny blue skies daytime highs have been struggling to get to the mid 20s F and nights have been hovering in the single digits to low teens.  An ever present wind chill is making it feel 10-20 degrees colder crushing any plans I have to get out and get the stink off. 

So...since I can't actually get out and work in the garden, I started making lists.  On one of my lists are plants that, for a variety of reasons need to be moved.  I make a list like this every year.  Some years the list is longer than others.  Rarely do I actually move every plant on the list.  Either the window of opportunity for moving plants closes, I get side tracked with other projects or I just get lazy.  Still, the list gets me thinking about areas of my garden that need work and where I might have openings for some of the new acquisitions I've been lusting after on websites and in catalogs.

Until I get outside for a walk around, the list will not be complete.  In fact, it will never be complete.  At some point when the perennials begin to emerge, I may just start the big shuffle and disregard the list completely.  Aren't lists made to be ignored?  Ideally I prefer to move perennials in the fall when the siting and/or design problems are fresh in my mind and I can judge sizes better but as you can see from the list that doesn't always happen.  In my experience shrubs move better in late winter or early spring while they're still dormant.

Notice I have a section for plants to be removed.  That move would be to the big nursery in the sky.  For now I've decided to put only woody plants on that list even though I have a plethora of perennials that likely won't live to languish through the 2013 season.  Until recently I rarely hoicked a plant.  Usually if something wasn't working I would just move it to a less visible part of the garden.  But in the past few years, with limited garden space and a desire to spend less time on maintenance and more on having a life, I've become more ruthless.  If my choices surprise you, allow me to explain.

Corylus avellana 'Red Majestic'

Honestly I hate to have to get rid of this shrub.  If sited correctly it's got a winning combination of colorful foliage and winter interest.  However I didn't site it well and now it's too big to move.  It grew much larger and faster than I expected and I didn't give it enough room.  In an attempt to make it work in the space I've been pruning it for the past few years which has ruined the form.  Last year some of the branches on the north side and underneath started dying out.  I'm not sure if that is due to too little sun or some weakness.  I guess it doesn't matter.  Negatives include suckering  from below the graft and occasional Japanese beetle damage.  If I ever get a larger, sunnier garden this shrub will be at the top of the list.

Viburnum opulus 'Nana'

One of the oldest shrubs in my garden.  Despite living in the deep shade of the nasty front yard Sycamore it was always a reliable bloomer and heavy producer of berries.  A few years ago the leaves started getting some sort of fungus causing them to dry up and drop off in late summer.  Maybe anthracnose from the Sycamore?  Could be but it's now a moot point.  During the freak snow storm in October 2011, the entire shrub was crushed under the weight of a falling Sycamore branch.  Last spring I pruned it back to the ground but it never really recovered.  It will be replaced with an Eleutherococcus sieboldianus 'Variegatus' currently planted too close to the property line.  Variegated foliage will brighten up the spot and my neighbor will no longer get raked with thorns when mowing his lawn.

Rosa 'Carefree Sunshine'

Over the years I've shovel pruned more roses than I care to count.  Shadows from buildings, mature trees and other plants allow for few of the true full sun opportunities in my garden that roses prefer.  Toss in my zero tolerance for blackspot with my reluctance to fuss with sprays and other nonsense and you find very few roses making their way to my garden.  'Carefree Sunshine' has always made the cut.  A few years ago I moved it from too much shade to what I thought was a better spot in the patio garden.  Since then it has languished and produced few flowers.  If I can find a spot where I think it will flourish again, I'll move it.  Otherwise it's sayonara baby!

Although I haven't indicated it on the list, one of plants to be moved may end up also being removed.

Sambucus nigra 'Black Lace'

For a foliage nut, Sambucus appears to have it all-texture, color, dramatic presence and for us northern gardeners, hardiness.  Unfortunately for me it's been a dud.  Every spring it taunts and seduces me with dark ferny new growth.  Oh how I love purple foliage plants!  Within a month or two though all of those new shoots wilt away and die.  I've had the same issue with Sambucus racemosa 'Sutherland Gold' and it's frustrating to say the least.  'Black Lace' has been languishing out of sight in a poor soil area of my garden for years.  Last year I read a post on Karla Dalley's blog, Gardendaze indicating that Sambucus wilt is caused by borers.  A hard prune in early spring is recommended to rid the stems of the overwintering little buggers.  Usually I do hard prune mine but this spring I'm going to prune it down to nothing, move it to a more hospitable spot and cross my fingers and toes.  If that doesn't work, I will sadly bid it farewell.

So there you have it.  If you've gotten this far without having your eyes glaze over, I applaud your stamina.  If you have experience with any of the plants on my list I'd love to hear about it.  In the meantime, hang in there northern gardeners-spring is right around the corner!

Sue~

Notable Exceptions

Last Friday I finally finished garden cleanup for the year.  I still have a few plants to move into basement storage and a garage bay to clean and reorganize but that can wait a week or two.  For now I need a break from all things garden related. 

Unfortunately my buddy Nick was recently diagnosed with a compressed disc.  Throughout his life he's occasionally had back problems and over the past year the episodes have become more frequent.  Last week we had to make a trip to the ER vet.  Monday was the x-ray appointment.  Tomorrow we have an appointment with Dr. Amy, Nick's holistic vet.  I'm hoping that accupuncture and chiropractic combined with a limitation of his activities (my boy has always been a climber and a jumper), will keep him comfortable and moving without expensive and invasive surgical intervention.  Please keep your fingers crossed.

Anyway, on one of my forays outside over the weekend I noticed a few shrubs were still sporting some eye catching foliage.  Now that just about everything is fifty shades of brown, any color stands out like a beacon.




Hydrangea quercifolia 'Little Honey'

'Little Honey' wide angle view.

Zenobia pulverulenta 'Woodlander's Blue'

Hydrangea quercifolia 'Amethyst'

Spiraea thunbergii 'Ogon'

Hypericum 'Blue Velvet' with the everblooming Daphne x transatlantica 'Summer Ice'

Unknown Leucothoe from Fairweather Gardens

Abelia x grandiflora 'Confetti'

Hypericum x moserianum 'Tricolor'

Some years I wait too long to decorate the urns for the holidays and the soil freezes.  I ran out of time on Sunday but wanted to at least get the container next to my side door decked out.  Using fresh foliage from the garden can sometimes be a challenge.  So far I like this theme of using spent Hydrangea paniculata 'Limelight' flowers as a focal point.  What do you think?

Time to break out the eggnog and deck those halls!


Sue~

   

Fleeting Fall Foliage

Hurricane Sandy whipped through the northeast last night stripping hundreds of thousands of people of their homes and/or belongings.  In CT we have now experienced three storms in just 14 months that have caused catastrophic damage to property.  Storms of a magnitude and scope like we have never experienced.  Mother Nature can certainly be a real bitch when she wants to be, that's for sure.  My heartfelt sympathies go out to everyone who found themselves on the wrong side of Sandy.

In advance of the storm, I made a point to do a walk around and grab a few shots of fall color in the garden.  As I suspected, Sandy hastened the demise of foliage season.  What you see here is now a distant memory.

Beautiful fall color of the Sourwood (Oxydendron arboreum)

Oakleaf Hydrangea (Hydrangea quercifolia 'Snowflake')

Amsonia hubrichtii

Enkianthus campanulatus

Physocarpus opulifolius 'Summer Wine'

Neighbor's maple



Acer palmatum 'Kinran'

Sue~

 

Lespedeza thunbergii-Let it Be, Let it Be, Let it Be

When prospecting for plants to adorn my relatively small suburban garden, I'm always on the lookout for shrubs that can be severely pruned in early spring.  Buddleia, Hydrangeas paniculata and arborescens, summer blooming Spirea, Caryopteris, Callicarpa, Cotinus, Indigofera, and Physocarpus are some of more common examples.  Many of these plants bloom on new wood so hacking them back won't sacrifice flowering and usually produces a more compact floriferous plant.

Lespedeza thunbergii somewhat falls into the above category.  In the spring it gets cut back to pretty much nothing but by mid summer it grows into a sizable specimen.  I've had Lespedeza in my garden for a few years.  Every spring I cut it back to about six inches and end up with a respectable sized shrub of about five by five feet.  Maybe it was the mild winter or maybe the shrub is just maturing but this year the Lespedeza in my small fountain garden has reached somewhat monstrous proportions.

A couple of years ago, the hard drive crashed on my old laptop and obliterated my entire plant database so I'm not sure which cultivar I have.  I suspect it might be one of the so called "smaller than 'Gibraltar'" varieties or it very well could be 'Gibraltar'.  The longer I garden the less I care about remembering Latin and cultivar names.  Probably because I no longer can. 

Normally I would be in a twitch over a plant growing this far out of bounds (truth be told I plant using a tape measure).  Not so with Lespedeza.  In September in New England, not much blooms with this sort of reckless abandon especially when given no supplemental water during one of the hottest, driest summers on record.  In my humble opinion, you can't beat Lespedeza with a stick.



Lespedeza thunbergii cascading over a Daphne x transatlantica 'Summer Ice'



The poor Miscanthus 'Morning Light' behind the Cleomes may have to find a new home.



An "aerial" view



Lespedeza thunbergii in my screen porch fountain garden taken September 4, 2012



Same view as above taken September 22, 2011



As you can see from the above two pictures, the Lespedeza has increased in size somewhat dramatically from 2011 to 2012.  Both the Miscanthus 'Morning Light' and Wiegela 'Rubidor', clearly visible in the upper center of the 2011 picture, are not visible this year.  I tried with no luck to find a picture of this area taken in early spring after everthing had been cut back and hauled out.



Flower panicles of Lespedeza thunbergii



Although I can't say I planned this vignette, I like the contrast of the bold foliage of the Colocasia and the the colors of the self seeding Cleomes are just perfect.

Interesting to note: the L. thunbergii 'Avalanche' I have planted in a dry, semi wild part of my garden I fondly refer to as the Reclamation Area is not yet blooming.  In fact it appears to be thumbing it's nose at me in retribution for the benign neglect I have heaped onto it this season.  If time permits, I'll get out there and show it some love this weekend.

A neglected L. thunbergii 'Avalanche'

If you have a sunny spot and need some late season garden interest, I say give Lespedeza thunbergii a try.  Just give it room and let it be.



TGIF!

Local Haunts-Broken Arrow Nursery

On Sunday I finally got around to haunting one of my favorite CT nurseries, Broken Arrow in Hamden.  Because I am woefully behind in my own garden, this was a quick "hit and run" trip that unfortunately did not involve food.  Recently I promised myself that I wouldn't buy any more plants unless I had a specific spot for them in the garden so one would think that would cut down on the nursery trips.  Well one would be wrong.  What could I possibly have been I drinking, I mean thinking, when I made that promise?

You won't find any annuals here.  At Broken Arrow it's all about the woodies...so to speak.  Nursery owner Dick Jaynes, is known throughout the plant world as a premier hybridizer of mountain laurels, the state flower of CT.  In the past few years Broken Arrow has evolved into a specialty nursery for unusual woody plants.

The Japanese maple selection is tough to beat-both in small container sizes and larger landscape size trees.

As far as perennials go, the emphasis seems to be in favor of shade lovers but unusual stuff for sunnier sites can be found as well.

Somehow I managed to keep my specific plant for a specific spot promise and escaped with only two shrubs-Hypericum 'Albury Purple'-one of my favorite small accent shrubs, and Hydrangea serrata 'Kiyosumi'.  I'm a sucker for hydrangeas with interesting foliage and have had good luck with consistent flowering on the serratas.  The one perennial I succumbed to was tagged Kalimeris 'Geisha'.  I tried to research it on line and all the sources I found described it as a gold variegated foliage plant.  As you may be able to see, the plant I purchased has pink, green and white variegation so I doubt it's 'Geisha'.  I tried searching for just the foliage color and came up with nothing so for now it will remain a mystery.

Despite the measly haul, the trip was worth a few hours of lost gardening time.  Due to a recent reorganization, I have some holes in my backyard border and between these plants and a few annuals I found at a greenhouse on the way home I was able to plug some of them.  Now I'm one step closer to maintenance mode only-tasks that can be performed with one hand leaving the other free to hold a wine glass.