Memorial Day Blooming

I've never seen Memorial Day weekend blooming like this at the store, and it is wonderful.  While we might typically have the chives blooming, they are almost past and I haven't even made any chive vinegar yet.  The sage is gloriously in full flower and the yarrow flower started opening yesterday, a full 3 to 4 weeks early.  The garden is just briming, not sure what will be left in a month or two, but maybe we'll get some second flushes of flowers this year. 

The garden is overtaken with feverfew this year also, which I love but enough already.  It is budded and ready to open soon, and as soon as it flowers it will get picked and dried and the plants removed to avoid a total feverfew garden next year.

Foxglove Frenzy

I just love foxglove (Digitalis purpurea). There is all kinds of folklore around foxglove and other common names are Fairy Gloves, Fairy Thimbles, Witches' Gloves and Dead Men's Bells. It

was originally Folksglove as the flowers resemble the fingers of a glove.Foxglove contains cardiac stimulants, the most familiar being Digitoxin. It is extremely poisonous and should not be used internally.

So just enjoy these wonderful plants. They come in all colors and Digitalis grandiflora, the big-flowered foxglove, is a brilliant yellow. The above picture is Digitalis mertonensis, or Strawberry Foxglove, which is a cross of Digital purpurea and Digitalis grandiflora that I am enjoying in my garden this year.

Scotland - Part I

Scotland - land of castles, water, mountains, rock...we just returned from a wonderful trip. There were so many wonderful things but here are the "garden" pictures.

Well not exactly garden, I was fortunate to be able to visit for a 2nd time the standing stones of Callenish on the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides. Thousands of years old, no one is quite sure who put them there, or why. Experts are pretty sure it is a lunar alignment, and the area is scattered with them. They fascinate and move me, quite extraordinary.

The land was ablaze in yellow for our visit. The gorse was everywhere. This was taken from the top of Dunnideer Hillfort, the site of an ancient Roman castle.

And more yellow came from the fields of rapeseed. I had a delicious rapeseed oil one night for dinner with fresh bread. Heavier and a bit nuttier than olive oil, it is flavorful and grown all over.

The Highlands are stark, rocky and breathtakingly beautiful, with gorse here in bloom again.

On the Isle of Skye, we visited the "fairy land". I can believe fairies live among these rocks and this tree that seemed to grow right up out of the rock.

A wonderful moss wall on a country road in Insch. It was a beautiful trip, I hope to visit again.

Scotland - Part II

I was all excited when I saw this herb store in Glasgow - with the plants outside and the beautiful signs. Inside was rather like a health food store here in the States, but what I really liked was the desk where you can make an appointment to consult with an herbalist. Wish it was so here!

But here are the formal garden pictures. This collection of different heathers was beautifully arranged on a slope, with rhododendron and ablaze in color.

A formal design at House for an Art Lover at Bellahouston Park in Glasgow.

Also at Bellahouston Park, what is this? It looks similiar to angelica, and obviously the same large size, but not really quite right....

And the British do love their colorful primrose, mixed here with tulips.

A treat to see horse chestnut in flower. It brought back memories for several in the group who remembered them growing up.

At the Glasgow Botanic Garden, I thought this color combination was just beautiful.

Rhododendron in bloom at the Glasgow Botanic Garden, what colors.

Boston Flower & Garden Show 2011

Aaah, flower shows. The Boston Flower & Garden Show is going on through Sunday, March 20th, and I had the chance to attend this week. Is there nothing better on a cold, raw, rainy March day than to smell the dirt, see the green, ooh and aah over the flowers and displays and think of Spring? So of course we have to start off with the tulips and bright colors. But there was so much more!
I loved this beautiful display of foxgloves, one of my favorites in the garden.

Another favorite of mine at the garden shows is the stone work. This circular stone sculpture was breathtaking, and of course there are Spring flowers there as well!
And this one I would like to have in my backyard. I have the perfect spot for it, maybe someday.
The theme of this year's show was the Container Garden.
I went to an inspiring lecture by Deborah Trickett of The Captured Garden. Here is a basket of Deborah's with seedlings just hatching from egg shells. I came home with all sorts of ideas, as Deborah said, anything that can hold dirt can be used as a container!

And wouldn't this have been a beautiful place to sit down and have lunch! The Newport Flower Show put on a gorgeous display that made you want to climb right in and sit down.

So after we rested a bit and ate some lunch, my friend Ginny looked at the plastic containers our lunch came in and declared them perfect for seed starting! We collected
containers from the ladies we were sharing a table with and came home with some nice mini terrariums.






And fasion seemed to be a theme this year as well. The stone lady went with the Newport display, and the pink dress with the flower bodice, in the display by Village Arts & Flowers of Walpole, MA was stunning.





But this lady was my favorite. Perched high on the top of a rock outcropping, you almost didn't notice her unless you were really looking. Gazing down on all of us, she looked peaceful and serene in her woodland setting, right at home.

Angelica Guiness Book of World Records?

So is there a category in the Guiness Book of World Records for the largest Angelica plant? If so, I think I should enter.

I've never quite understood the fascination for big vegetables. I look at the gimongous (wicked big) pumpkins and baseball bat size zuchini and don't really get it. Yes, there is some kind of morbid fascination with a 400 or 500 pound vegetable, but to spend all season nurturing some behemoth and then try and cart it off to the state fair for a ribbon seems a bit odd to me.

But having said that, I have a monster angelica (Angelica archangelica) growing and think it deserves some sort of blue ribbon in the monster plant world.

Angelica is known to grow large, and often reaches 6 feet, but mine is close to 7 feet and it is only the end of May. Known as an old medicinal herb to stimulate the immune system, it also has an anesthetic quality and the seeds and roots are often used with wormwood in making absinthe and the seeds are an ingredient in vermouth and chartreuse. I love the way the flowers seem to burst out of alien like pods that grow on the stems, fascinating to watch and a wonderful addition to the garden for its scent and amazing presence.

But back to the giant in the yard...I rescued this plant from some leftover plants at the store last year. It had overwintered outside in a pot and barely looked alive last Spring. Never being able to throw away a plant that has even a little life in it, I brought it home and planted it in my new garden, which had plenty of space to fill. It responded beautifully and I had a large, 5 foot plant last year which was healthy and strong but didn't flower. Wondering if it would come back this year, didn't I see it emerge in early Spring and by the end of April was as large as it was last year. Here it is in early Spring at the back left hand side of the picture along the fence...



Would it bloom this year? By the end of May it is now covered in over a dozen flower heads, just popping out all over. A recent hail storm knocked down some of them and I thought of trying to stake it, but I don't have anything near tall enough to stake it to.

Although commonly known as a biennial, angelica is really a short-lived perennial and dies after it's flowering year, which means this plant will die after this year. That makes me rather sad, so I'm trying to enjoy the plant in all its majesty this year. Candied angelica stem is a Victorian classic, and there are all sorts of recipes for using the roots, leaves, and seeds which I think I will try this summer in honor of this incredible plant.

Has anyone ever cooked or used their angelica? If so, please feel free to post your experiences or recipes. And can anyone else vie for the blue ribbon prize for biggest angelica this year? I'm awarding it to myself until I see a bigger one!

Spring Garden Highlights

I'm a bit late posting the Spring photos of the garden. I actually started this post about 3 weeks ago, but am just getting around to finishing it up. It still takes me an awful long time to get the pictures arranged, and they still don't come out how I would like. Oh well....

It's been a beautiful, extended Spring with bouts of warm weather and rain that made the garden pop. I can't remember a Spring in recent years that lasted so long and the colors on the Spring shrubs and plants are just spectacular.

Daffodils and bleeding heart, two favorites.. Love the delicate flowers of the pulmonaria

Since the garden was just planted last Fall, I was anxious to see what would survive the winter, how the bulbs that were planted would look and if things would start filling in. I was pleased on all accounts, and just need to get some mulch down and I think the gardens by the steps will be all done. I did lose my espaliered apple tree. It fruited for the first time last summer and I was so excited. Then something ate the bark all around the base over the winter, and it is dead, dead, dead. So disappointing and I'm having trouble finding a new one. But everything else is looking good and here are some random shots of the new garden this Spring, enjoy!

Spring is Here!

I don't know where March went...I know I've been behind on my blogging, but when I saw my last post was in February I was rather surprised. So lets see if I can back on track here, there's so much to talk about!

After the rains and flooding that pounded our area, the sun is out and it is unseasonably warm causing the plants to burst into leaf and flower. It seemed like one day, it was suddenly mid-Spring, having missed totally the early Spring part. I hear we are supposed to get back to early Spring weather shortly, but the plants look like they are very happy with this warmth.

Since my new garden was just planted last year, this is the first I'm getting to see what survived the winter. I had never grown hellebores before, and put this one in last year. What a beauty, in full bloom, and now I want all different kinds of them. It is offset by a pink azelea behind it in full flower and daffodils, which in this shaded area haven't quite opened up. But the border of daffodils along the pool are glorious, the prettiest I've seen them in several years.

This nice weather also allowed me to get the cleanup done that should have been finished last Fall. But it was warm and everything was green one day, and then in typical New England fashion it snowed the next and the garden was covered until March (my missing month). And when the snow melted I saw how much did not get done in the Fall. It is all done now, cleaned up, perennials starting to come up and ready for the annual herbs and vegetables. Is there anything more exciting than the anticipation of the gardening season? All things seem possible, and of course, this will be the best garden ever.

Blotanical.com has me inspired to plot out my garden on the computer this year, and I have been trying different programs out. I need one that can easily make curves and other odd shapes, as none of my beds are rectangular. So maybe the graph paper is easier. I'm not giving up on the computer programs yet however.

It feels so good to work the earth, watch the plants popping up, see the trees in bud and see the flowers opening, what could be better?

Flower Show Time

Spring must be near, because the flower shows have started. I played hooky today and spent the day at the Rhode Island Spring Flower & Garden Show in Providence. It's the earliest one in the area and there is something wonderful about smelling dirt and seeing plants in bloom in February.

It always amazes me how whole buildings can be brought into a convention center and set up to look like they just belong there. The time and effort required is Hurculean I'm sure. This was
my favorite, a stone house with a moss roof and a stone heart shaped entrance framing the building. It can't be seen well in the picture (double click on it to enlarge the picture) but the top was all grapevines and had a birds nest sitting in the middle. And of course, it was surrounded by incredible plantings.

Here are some other pictures of displays and blooms that struck my fancy...



The lighting on this display gave an ethereal, other-worldly cast on a chapel-like stone building as if it was caught at sunset bathed in red and pink. Accenting the building was a pond in front, dramatic red dogwood branches, daffodils and flowering shrubs. On the side of this were a few fallen down tombstones, surrounded by crocus and primose. Like stepping into a fairyland.

Lady slippers and other orchids to the right. I've never been able to keep an orchid alive, never mind have these beautiful blooms, but I love admiring them.




And then there's the whimsy. This was a whole VW bus from 60's decorated in peace and love, parked in the middle of a man-made forrest. This was the back...unfortunately I dropped my camera and it decided it didn't want to work anymore so I couldn't get a picture of the front which was quite spectacular. Even had a couple hippies sitting in the front that looked like they were made of moss. Groovy!


I attended a fun demonstration on making herbal vinegars by Paul Split, a horticultural consultant who does demonstrations all over the place (http://www.paulsplit.com/). I make plenty of herbal vinegars but got some new ideas as well as a good source for bottles. Paul is a great presenter, and I appreciated his extolling the virtues of organic gardening to the crowd while making his vinegars.

I also attended a lecture by Julie Moir Messervey on the Home Outside: Creating the Landscape You Love based on her new book. Well organized, practical and inspiring, her slides were beautiful and I wanted to run home and start putting in new gardens all over the place.

I finished up the day going through the vendor area. I bought some heirloom seeds from the Hudson Valley Seed Library - a Dragon's Tongue bean and scarlet Flax - and a neat herb grinder. I usually always buy pussywillows at this show but couldn't find any so headed to the parking garage. In the elevator, wasn't there a woman with 2 bunches of pussywillows. I asked where she had found them and she told me those were the last 2. So no pussywillows this year from the show, but it was a wonderful day. How many days until Spring?

May Garden & Lessons in Patience

One of the things I love about gardening is the many life lessons that can be received. And for me, patience is one of those. Plants and gardens have their own timetables and they may not necessarily correspond with mine. May has been a month of waiting and watching, planning and yearning, fine tuning the garden plan and wondering how it is all going to work.

We had some periods of warm, sunny weather where I wanted to run out and plant, but I knew it was too early. The full planting moon came several weeks ago but it was still too cold and early. But slowly some chervil, parsley and onions went in the garden.

Martha Stewart had a show recently where she showed a product called Hot Kaps (hotkaps.com) to protect seedlings. Her garden was planted and covered with caps - ah ha I thought! I went online and bought some and planted my pumpkins and zuchini started from seed and covered them protectively with their hot kaps. How cute and how satisfying to get some planting done.

And so I waited, as weeds started filling my beautiful new garden soil. The hollyhocks I started from seed went into the garden, also wearing their hot kaps and a good size echinacea and perennial carnation went in. Ladies mantle was transplanted, and russian sage, catmint and comfrey went in. And the weeds still came and the garden looks so empty.

I know that the first year is the year of the "bones" of the garden. Get the perennials in and started, allowing plenty of room for their eventual growth. I yearn to plant everything closer, but know that if I do, I will be pulling out, dividing, and trying to control the plants in a year or two so am holding myself back.

I have a garden plan on paper, with each bed measured and on graph paper to scale, filled in with plants at their mature size. But the gardens look so much bigger in real life and right now they look rather empty.

But in getting plants to fill in all the space, I've also had to deal with my perfectionism in my garden. I go between 2 extremes....one wanting just the right, perfect plant for a certain location and the other saving every lost little plant I find. Sometimes this works....a plant that is struggling at the store I will put in my home garden knowing that it will come to life and be a wonderful addition. I just can't throw a plant away and although it might not be perfect enough to sell, it can be salvaged. A few of the scented geraniums I overwintered fell into that category. Missing most of their leaves and looking very scraggly, I planted several of them in the garden where they are flowering and new leaves are starting to appear. Voila! But I know I will get a lot further, faster if I buy full size perennials such as the echinacea that went in. So I go between the two extremes, feeling satisfaction in watching the struggling plant come back to life but also appreciating the beauty of the large full plants.

And I realize that it is the need for instant gratification, the desire to have the perfect garden NOW and wanting the plants and nature to be on my schedule rather than my having to adapt to theirs that can be so frustrating. So I take a deep breath, talk to the plants and allow myself to sink into the process of building a garden which will take years, not days.

But that is part of the joy of it and the sense of being part of something living outside myself. I am their caretaker, and they are mine. There is so much in life that is fast, easy and instantaneous that it can feel uncomfortable to be slow, mindful and on nature's schedule. But maybe that's the sign that I need it all the more.

New Garden in April

The planting has started in the new garden, hurrah! It has been a cold wet month and not a lot has been able to go in yet. I mentioned to someone that I was planting and she replied that I had said in the store newsletter that it was too early to plant in April. Well, generally speaking that's true. But there are always exceptions. So what has been planted in April....

• The Hawthorn tree (in picture). This is planted in the center circle. There was much discussion about what to put in the circle...a fountain, maybe a statue, some plantings, a tree or shrub? I decided on the hawthorn because hawthorn is a gentle herb of the heart, and is a sacred plant from the tradition that it supplied the cross of thorns. It is also considered a magical plant for protection. I had a beautiful small tree from our garden club plant sale and no where to put it. It does get large and may not stay in its current home, but we'll see how it goes!
• Overwintered perennials. Many of my plants had to be moved for the new garden and it was too late in the year to replant them, so I overwintered them in a holding spot until Spring. As they started to show new growth, I've replanted them and have a small border of lavender along with lovage, valerian, ladie's mantle,thyme, chives and angelica replanted.
• Cold hardy plants. Newly planted are lettuces, arugula, sorrel, tatsoi, peas and a few other assorted greens that grow in the cold soil and air.

So now I'm just waiting for the soil to warm up a bit to continue planting. The space is much larger than I'm used to having which is a good thing, but also a bit overwhelming. So I'm just taking it a bit at a time and trying to curb my impatience as I space plants far apart knowing that they will grow in and a the bones of a beautiful garden are being established.