Garden: Update--Late Summer 2018

Hey everybody!  Long time no see.  I feel as though gardening has lost its allure (helped along, maybe, by the reminder of the plumbing fiasco that destroyed parts of the garden nearly two years ago).  And I have a pretty short attention span, to be honest; it is hard to sustain the slowly-accruing rewards of gardening.  

So, anyway, last Fall I dug up and redesigned the front garden bed, ditching the New Perennials-style planting and creating something more traditionally Pacific Northwest.  The new planting is lower maintenance and offers more continuity throughout the year than did the previous scheme.

The new garden features swathes of Hakonechloa (Japanese Forest Grass) interrupted with sword ferns.  Both are good four-season plants, here.  The Hakonechloa dies over the Winter, but maintains a full,  mounded shape and attractive, warm buff color.  The ferns remain upright and green until I cut them back to make room for fresh Spring growth, so they contribute year-round to an attractive planting scheme.  Last Winter, the garden looked a bit sketchy because the plants were so immature, but I think the combination will be a winner as it becomes fuller with maturity.  

The new scheme also introduced a few new plants.  I'm almost embarrassed to admit that there are a peony and a rose as well as the clematis, hydrangea, and Foxglove that survived the purge.  What???!!?  Those flowers sound way, way too "English Garden" for me!  We'll see.  They are interspersed throughout the Hakoneckloa in what I hope looks like a "natural" manner.  The rose is just a tiny thing that I got through mail-order from Heirloom Roses (so it won't show up in these photos at all) and the peony is an Itoh hybrid with single/semi-double butter yellow flowers.  I hope it gives good Fall color, but I'm not positive that it will.

Here is the view into the corner of the front garden bed.  Most of the plants are still small, so there is quite a bit more ground showing than I would like.  The hydrangea remains from the previous garden scheme, but everything else is new--either newly purchased or simply dug and divided from elsewhere in the garden.  

Another view of the same.  There is a swath of Astilbe chinensis "Purple Candles" at the back (six plants in total, grouped around the foot of the hydrangea), the pale trunks of a multi-stemmed vine maple in the foreground, and the new Itoh peony in the left-hand corner.

I've added some purple Ajuga "Mahogany" to continue the purple foliage from the other side of the entry path.  The Ajuga is doing a good job of holding its own amidst the encroaching Sweet Woodruff. 

Existing plantings on the other side of the entry path.  I simplified this planting last Fall to keep it in character with the changes to the other side of the garden.  There is a lot of Hakonechloa in this portion of the garden--it shows up all over our property as does the Japanese Anemone--I guess you could call them "signature plants".

And that's the current state of the garden.  I hope it will look OK next Spring, but I think the plants will need an additional year to mature and to fill-in before the reality matches the vision.  

While I wait for that to happen, I will be spending time on different artistic pursuits including Art (I'm trying to improve to the point of being able to make real "Art" with a capital "A") and I am setting myself up to dabble in oil paints.

Garden: Autumn Beauty

Some pretty things happened in my garden and I want to share them with you!

Clouds of anemones.  It's been a great year for the anemones.  These are planted on one side of the narrow side-yard path.

Good thing I took time to hunt for passion flowers!  I spied this one hiding amongst the foliage of the grape.  Passion flowers last only a single day and I'd feared that these (which budded out so late!) wouldn't bloom before being claimed by inclement weather.

Apples on the "Golden Sentinel" pole apple.

Front garden border with Eutrochium, Chocolate Cosmos, Calamagrostis brachytricha, Pennisetum "Hameln", and Sedum "Autumn Joy"

Hydrangea "Bombshell" bloom and foliage coloring-up for Fall.

Chocolate cosmos

All photos taken this morning as conditions flitted from sunny to overcast and back.  

Garden: The Plant Merry-Go-Round

Is it Fall yet?  I don't know...it FEELS like Fall...it COULD be Fall...some of the plants are going into "Fall mode"...my brain is going into "Fall mode".  Although I designed my garden around plants that bloom together in late Summer and early Fall (and some of them are just now coming into bloom), the record-breaking heat and drought of Summer really took a toll on my enjoyment of that season and last week's unseasonal heavy rains and high winds seemed to close the door on it.  Recently, I've been taking the gardener's walk around the garden--thinking about what worked, what failed, and what could be improved next year.  And, as all gardeners know, this ends up being a plant merry-go-round--this goes here...but then, that moves there...and the other thing...I don't know, maybe I'll put it somewhere in the back...or in the green waste bin... 

Here are some of the plants currently riding the merry-go-round:

First up is the purple Actaea (Cimicifuga) seen in this picture taken during mid-Summer.  I like the Actaea very much when viewed from this position--its ferny foliage is interesting and (I think) blends with its neighbors in interesting ways.  But it lacks boldness and bulk when viewed from the street.  Earlier this Summer, I planted a second Actaea into a small gap behind the first in order to thicken it up and give it the density I feel it lacks.  But then...

Mid-Summer photo of the front garden showing Actaea, barberry, and C. brachytricha (among others).

...then I started thinking that, maybe, I just need to yank them out and replace them with these Ageratina altissima (used to be Eupatorium rugosum) "Chocolate" from the back yard.  

Back garden showing Ageratina altissima "Chocolate", Darmera (and others).

The A. altissima "Chocolate" might be a better match for the weight of the Eutrochium (Eupatorium) dubium "Phantom" that's on the other side of the corner (out front).  When I am standing on the sidewalk in front of our house, I always think I should make this change. I am sure of it.  But when I climb the stairs and view the garden up close, I think I will prefer to leave it as-is.    Enjoyment of the composition from far away, or enjoyment of detail when viewed closer-up--I am not sure there is a "right" answer.  I have the niggling suspicion that a better design would accommodate both.

Ageratina altissima "Chocolate" is also riding the plant merry-go-round.  Whether or not it is a better choice than the Actaea in the front garden, I'm also considering whether or not the back garden planting would be be improved by removing it and replacing with another Darmera.  I think so.  Readers are welcome to weigh-in on this and all other proposed plant swaps.

Back out front,   I plan to swap the small, mounded purple barberry with the grass planted just to the left of it.  The grass is a young Calamagrostis brachytricha.  That will be an easy swap and I'm pretty sure it is the right thing to do.

A pretty combo--Eutrochium (Eupatorium) "Phantom" and C. brachytricha.

While on the subject of grasses, I have a few others that might be riding the merry-go-round.  This time, I do not have to shoulder the blame for poor plant selection.  This photo (below) is taken from the street.  I just re-planted the foreground (rockery) portion--it used to be a monoculture of Sesleria caerulea.  The grasses in front are Pennisetum "Little Bunny".  The grasses in the main garden, behind, are Pennisetum "Hameln" that have been moved from place to place for about five or six years.  At least, I always THOUGHT that they were "Hameln" because that is how they were identified when I bought them.  However, this year, two of them became congested in the center and I chose to replace them with new plants.  The new plants quickly grew taller and more open than did the existing plants and the blooms stretched far above the mound of foliage.  Clearly, they perform differently than do my existing "Hameln" plants.  Then, I bought Pennisetum "Little Bunny" for the newly planted rockery.  I was looking for a plant similar to "Hameln" but smaller.  The new "Little Bunny" perform EXACTLY as do the existing "Hameln"--they are smaller than the new "Hameln" and the blooms stay lower and are buried in the foliage instead of growing tall above it.  It kinda makes me wonder if the original "Hameln" plants weren't "Little Bunny" all along.  And it makes me wonder if I need to yank out the new plants in the main garden and replace them with "Little Bunny".  "Little Bunny" fits the space I'd allowed based on my original plants' proven performance.   Hmmm.....

Front garden and rockery garden at the street.

View across the entry path to the main part of the front garden.  There are two taller "Hameln" in there as well as three of the more compact ones.  Also, two young Calamagrostis brachytricha and the nearly invisible Actaea.

And, in another case of mistaken identity...  Years ago, when I first bought Japanese anemones for the garden, I chose "Honorine Jobert" because I wanted single flowers and a slightly taller plant.  Lo and behold, when they flowered they proved to be "Whirlwind" instead.  As time has passed, I continued to buy "Whirlwind" because I wanted all the plants to match. 

Anemone "Whirlwind".

This year, I removed some plants from the garden bed to the right of the entry path and replaced them with more newly purchased "Whirlwind".  At least, that's what I thought.  When the new plants bloomed, they proved to be single-flowered "Honorine Jobert".  How frustrating (and ironic) is that?!

So, those are some of the plants currently riding the merry-go-round.  And I've got some wholesale garden redesigning on the calendar as well.  I'll finish this post with another view of some of the plants in the newly planted rockery area, in front, near the sidewalk.

The plant list includes Sedum "Purple Emperor", Sedum "Matrona", Geranium "Broookside", Melica, Pennisetum "Little Bunny", Allium "Summer Beauty", and Calamintha nepetoides.

Garden: Today in Photos

I spent this morning in the garden just pottering around--picking fallen leaves off the low plants that don't appreciate being smothered, plucking out the Shot Weed (Cardamine hirsuta, Hairy Bittercress) seedlings wherever I saw them,  and cutting down some of the more wretched-looking perennials.  While doing so, I was delighted to find some things looking especially fresh and full of life.  First up is this Lobelia seedling which sprouted in water collected in the cup of a Darmera leaf.

And then I checked on the Asarum europaeum.  These plants have taken a while to settle in, but they look like they'll grow into healthy clumps next year--lots of new buds at the crown.  They'll look lush and full with a new crop of shiny, dark green leaves, but they'll never look as fecund as they do right now.

Next to the Asarum is planted Chrysosplenium alternifolia, a small, evergreen, groundcover plant that was an impulse purchase from Far Reaches Farm.  This little plant has earned a warm spot in my heart.  At first, I sited it badly in an area that (I'm sure) was too wet and too shady.   The poor little thing just sat there dwindling slowly for months.  That's what happens with impulse purchases :-(  Eventually, I moved it to its current location and it perked up and started growing right away.  Then I discovered it unearthed and tossed aside, roots up--dug up by squirrels, probably.  I pushed it back in the ground and it took off growing again. I admire the tenacious survivors in my garden and this one certainly has proven itself. It is described in the Far Reaches Farm catalog as being about 6 inches tall, of indefinite spread, evergreen, and hardy to zone 5a.  This will be its first winter in my garden, so I can't attest to its winter hardiness, but it's more than quadrupled in size since I planted it in the current spot.  This little plant seems always to look tidy and fresh.  It is my hope that the Asarum and the Chrysosplenium (the leaves of the one--shiny, dark green, and round--contrasting with the hairy, lobed leaves of the other) will knit together into a low ground cover under a planting of ferns, hostas, and Arisaema in this woodland-y area of the garden.

Chrysosplenium alternifolia is tidy and fresh looking in all seasons.

Sweet Cicely (Myrrhis odorata) is another plant that always looks fresh.  Its ferny, bright green foliage emerges early in the year to be followed by white umbels.  The umbels are not super impressive--they are more like irregular tufts of blossoms as opposed the the architectural flower heads of Sellenium or Ammi--and the foliage is less architectural overall, but I appreciate the way its fresh green mound of foliage fills in early and lingers late.  I've got a couple of sizable clumps of Sweet Cicely growing in either side of the front garden.

An out-of-season bloom on Sweet Cicely with spent foliage of Chasmanthium latifolium.  Isn't that spring-green foliage fresh looking?

Also in the front garden, the self-seeded white Borage is still pumping out flowers.  I've no idea where this white Borage came from as none of my neighbors grow borage (white or otherwise), but I recognized early last spring that the seedlings were something different and possibly worth saving.  I'm glad I preserved them.  I've enjoyed the Borage this year and I'm interested to see if it makes a return appearance next spring.  The flowers have been a nice addition to the garden and the woeful foliage has not been an issue as it has been disguised/obscured behind the other plantings.  (Although I know that the foliage is typically kind of sparse, maybe it won't look quite as woeful if I don't attempt to transplant the plants in mid-season.)

Around to the side of the house, the espaliered Camellia is blooming.  I moved it from the front of the house to the north side of the carport/garbage enclosure and I think it's pleased with the new location.

So that's a quick look at what is going on in my garden--a few fresh moments amid the senescence of Fall...

Garden: Rain Drop Dash!

Well--as the title suggests, I dashed out between rain squalls to grab a few photos of the garden.  I'd been hoping to capture some evocative, richly tinted photos of the garden bathed in golden, afternoon sun--but that ain't going to happen!  At the moment, I predict that even if the sun makes a reappearance, all the leaves will have rotted or been driven to the ground by the heavy rains.  Already, I'm seeing a lot of decomposition and leaf drop even before the leaves have had a chance to color.  Maybe we haven't had the cold snap that we need to help develop leaf color?  Maybe this is the legacy of a rather droughty summer that stressed many of the plants? Truth be told, autumn color is a bit scarce everywhere in my neighborhood.

So, here's what we have in the garden today:

Front garden taken from the entry path (looking south, towards my neighbor's ancient cherry tree).  

"Long view" of the front garden taken from the carport.  Did anyone notice?--the unhappy Chasmanthiums are missing...an improvement already, I think.  The bright yellow plant is Amsonia "Blue Ice"  I moved it during the summer and it colored brilliantly.  The other plants won't achieve this fall coloration.

Some of the denizens of the "Carport Garden" located to the right of the path.  I think this planting will prove to be successful--I like the combination of the dark foliage (Ajuga "Mahogany and Salvia lyrata "Purple Volcano") with the other low, green groundcovers.  That's an Allium "Summer Beauty" in the foreground.

Cut Leaf Sumac with Calamagrostis "Karl Foerster" behind--in the bed to the north of the driveway.  I recently planted some asters ("Wood's Blue", I think) near the Sumac and, even though the camera cannot capture both plants at once, the fall color of the Sumac adjacent to the blue aster flowers is a really nice combination right now.

A little Halloween spirit and the Japanese anemones still making a bit of a display.

The walk around the side of the house to the backyard.

Rain-beaten Ageratina altissima "Chocolate" in the shady backyard with Hydrangea "Bombshell" and Darmera peltata.  Last year I wondered about the fall color of the "Bombshell" hydrangeas--the one most recently planted colored up a brilliant flame hue while the remainder showed peachy and pale yellow colors.  Well, this year I think they won't be able to hold onto their leaves long enough to achieve much color.  All the plants look like this and there are already quite a few leaves on the ground.

Still a few blooms on the Viburnum plicatum f. tomentosum "Watanabe"  I think I'm going to like this shrub!  It's a more-dwarf form of V. plicatum which flowers heavily in late spring and repeats off-and-on throughout the summer and fall. This, after I almost killed it by letting it bake in its nursery pot on a super-hot afternoon.

Yep.  It's different this year.  This is a picture of the front garden taken on October 20, 2013.  Definitely more lush and colorful, fresher, and greener.

So.  That's what is going on in my garden at the moment.  It's currently raining cats and dogs, so I'm happy to stay indoors working on craft projects and finishing my son's Halloween costume.

Garden: Photos of Early Fall

Well, Fall sure announced itself dramatically!  Last week, the television news coverage was all about "Storm Watch" and the "Weather Tracker".  In fact, we did see almost a week of rain, heavy at times, and accumulated (I'm told) about 3 inches of precipitation.  Usually, our rains are pretty gentle so that's a lot of rain from a single storm system.  The garden soaked it all up, though, and I think the plants were happy finally to quench their thirst.

It's bright, sunny, and pleasant now, so I wandered around the garden for a while with my camera.

Lacey textures in the front garden:  Pennisetum "Hameln", Ammi visnaga "Green Mist" and spent Allium "Summer Beauty" (which would, maybe, have held-up better if I hadn't transplanted it in mid-summer)

Dried stems of Salvia lyrata "Purple Volcano" in the carport bed with coloring Geum in the background (I transplanted the Geum during mid-summer, too--anybody see a pattern developing?)

Assortment of ground covers in the carport bed--Ajuga "Mahogany", Ajuga genevensis, and hardy Geranium "Jolly Bee" with Hakonechloa behind.  Next year, I am prepared for this Geranium to go on a rampage and consume the entire planting bed--this is an aggressive one!

The wider view of the carport bed with Allium "Summer Beauty" visible in the background

Driveway bed with a variety of plants coming up through a matrix planting of Nassella tenuissima:  Geranium macrorrhizum, dwarf leucanthemums, Calico Aster, white Guara, bearded iris, and annual salvia.  I'm trying to treat the Nassella right so it will thicken up and (finally) look good next year.

'Round back in the Arbor bed--Darmera peltata, Hakonechloa, and Astilbe.

Declining Darmera (ravaged by snails--what's up with that?  I never used to have a problem with snails!)  with self-seeded fern, moss, and sedums

Spidery!  Really spidery!

Garden: The Front Garden Slides Towards Fall

Just a quick post to share a couple of photos I took today.  The garden looks to have begun its slow (maybe not so slow...I don't know?) slide towards fall.  Drought stress and uneven watering may have hastened this progression.  I see room for improvement in my watering technologies, that's for sure.  But, then again, maybe I can just heap the lion's share of the "blame" on the change of seasons. It is, after all, nearly October already.

"Reverse View" taken from my neighbor's property, perpendicular to our front walk.  This would be opposite to the view you'd see if you approached our front door on the path. I've got my game-day flag out--go Seahawks!

The Cimicifuga seems to have faded/suffered sun scald practically overnight.  Did I let it dry out or is it just that time of year?  Its rich aubergine tones have been replaced by ochres and russets.  One of my favorite combinations in this part of the garden is the Cimicifuga with the spikes of Digitalis parviflora "Hot Chocolate".  It pleases me in Spring when the plants are fresh but also now, in shades of brown.  This year, in fact, having given voice to this sentiment on multiple occasions, I decided to to double-up on a feature I like and filled a gap in the garden with another Cimicifuga and more Digitalis seedlings.  So (yea!)  you will now be treated to even more pictures of my favorite plant combo!

Close-up of the corner grouping.

The Sedum "Autumn Joy" is coming into full bloom, much to the delight of honey bees.  There are 8-9 plants in this swath and I've been toying with the  idea of replacing a few of them with a duskier Sedum variety.  This year I planted a couple of Penstemon "Dark Towers" to fill holes and to weave dark foliage throughout the border.  I like the contribution their dark seed heads make to this scene (below). 

A different view of the corner.

So that's the state of the front garden.  Soon (next time, maybe) I'll have some pictures of the back yard.

Happy early fall!

Garden: I Spy--A Design Flaw I Can Fix

This is the corner of my front garden bed.  While I am sure that there are lots of improvements that can be made, there is one flaw that I see RIGHT NOW that I can easily fix.  Right in the middle of the corner there appears to be a gap in the planting.  In spring and summer, this area is filled with "Jolly Bee" hardy geranium, a trio of Chasmanthium latifolium (Northern Sea Oats)  and various spires such as Digitalis parviflora, adenophora, and asiatic lilies.  Behind those, right in the corner, is a baby "Quickfire" hydrangea.  

Well...what if I replace the three Chasmanthiums with a Miscanthus "Adagio"?  In the spring/summer, I would lose some of the looser structure that I'd hoped to achieve by planting the Chasmanthium.  And I'd lose some of the continuity provided by the Chasmanthium which is part of a larger swath that wraps around the Eupatorium (dark brown hulking thing in the center back). But, I think I'd gain a much greater fall/winter value with the addition of the miscanthus' persistent, tan, winter foliage.  It would bring the blonde color of the pennisetum foliage all the way into the corner and would provide visual bulk to the corner throughout the year (but especially during the winter). 

What say you, yea or nay?

The spot in question--corner of my front garden bed.

Garden: A Frosty Morning

The frost and morning sun brought life to some things:

Even as they took life from others:

I wonder if the buds are still viable?

Poor little guy is crispy, flowers, too.

Just so you know...despite my troubled relationship with yellow-jackets, I picked this one up and moved him to a sunny spot near his nest (well, A yellow jacket nest--Washington state had a population explosion of yellow jackets last year and I had more than my share).  

Bonus long view:

Garden: How Much Longer Will It Last?

In the Pacific Northwest, appreciation of the fall garden can be fleeting.  

When I peruse gardening books--especially those of the coffee table variety--I see many photos of the sculptural, winter-time seedheads of echinacea outlined with frost, silphium foliage standing tall and black against drifted snow, and dried seedheads of various grasses transformed by death and weather into garden art.  That is not-so-much the situation here, where persistent atmospheric moisture and mild temperatures rot the dying foliage and turn it to mush--really unsightly mush.  I've come to suspect that a sculptural winter garden is one benefit of harsher climates which basically freeze-dry the foliage as it stands.   Nonetheless, I am ever hopeful for a better outcome--especially as I have become more enamored of the "New Perennials" style of gardening with its focus on appreciation of the plant in EVERY season.

So.  Here we are at that time of year again.  Once again, I am heading into fall with the goal to leave the garden standing throughout winter for the appreciation of both humans and wildlife.  It's going to be hard.  The decision to leave the plants standing is not a single choice, but many choices made over a period of days, weeks, and months.  After all, I spent the summer deadheading spent blooms to prolong the floral show.  Maybe I should have let them be?  I cut down some browned astilbe blooms to improve the appearance of the rest of the planting.  But dried astilbe blooms look pretty fantastic in some of those photos.  In hindsight, maybe I should have kept my pruners in my pocket?

If I had a larger garden, the choice wouldn't be mine as the need for efficiency would prevail, but my garden is small and I can see and access every part of it.  It is also a front garden in a neighborhood of small properties.  EVERYONE can see and evaluate my choices.  In the past, tidiness has triumphed.  I've nipped and snipped, little by little, until the whole garden is cut down and tidied.  And yes, I've raked-up and composted the fallen leaves and replaced them with sterile, purchased, compost mulch.

But, what can I say?  I'm going to try again.  I took some photos of the back garden to celebrate what might be the last flush of fall beauty before things start getting REAL ugly. Whatever happens, I think that I will document it so all can see the true extent of the winter blahs.

This first photo is taken from the back patio, looking out toward the arbor.  The darmera still look pretty good.  The hakonechloa grew like gangbusters this year and shows some attractive red highlights.   I left a few astilbe blooms standing and, in this instance, I like them.  The yellow/brown foliage is Persicaria polymorpha.  I swept the patio, but left the blow-in leaves in the beds--they are pretty leaves, a mix of Japanese maple, redbud, robinia, and alder.

Arbor bed.

This view (below) is taken from the shed, looking back towards the patio and arbor--the persicaria is just out of view at the top right of the picture.  I like the mix of yellows, browns, and greens in this bed.  The greenest plants are Lobelia siphilitica and Brunnera macrophylla.  The browns are darmera, Lysimachia clethroides, and siberian iris.  That's an evergreen Acorus gramineus "Ogon" in the bottom right.  It's odd (to me) that these darmeras are well on their way to yellow and brown while the others, just around the corner of the house, are still green.  These get more sun, but also much more water.  In addition, they were  planted just this spring, while the others were planted the summer before.  

Swamp bed.

Again, I tidied the paths but left fallen leaves in the planting beds.  Although I will try to leave the plants standing, I may end up cutting things down little by little.  If that happens, I'll try to leave the cut foliage on the bed as mulch--a small step towards gentler, more "ecological" practices.

That's the plan, anyway, and we'll see what happens...