What do you see on your garden walks? 2012

[Hoy]

Michael, your place looks terrific! And your new rockery looks very promising

[Tim Ingram]

I agree - and what a great description of carving a garden into the rough! How many see a garden like this and are actually exhilarated by it?

[Tim Ingram]

This has got to be the most dramatic 'thistle' - Berkheya multijuga from the Drakensberg Mountains of South Africa. Its flowers are yellow and not especially striking, but the foliage gets more remarkable every year. Unlike B. purpurea, which I also grow, this doesn't send out running shoots, and neither does it set viable seed for me - I should probably excavate some roots and try root cuttings.

The second plant, Symphytum x uplandicum 'Axminster Yellow', is equally hard to propagate as root cuttings lose any variegation and it hardly produces enough growth to divide easily. A nice feature with Phlomis russeliana.

[Bundraba!]

Gardeners in Essex New York have given effort in fits and starts for some years. But I'm sensing a new paradigm. Today these guys 'get it'. Great use of the 'defendable borders' principal in these: 8 or so feet between sidewalk and street put under staunch perennials and again between sidewalk and building.

    

The garden display is easy; there has been scant care of landscape over the years yet it has succeeded to a relative degree. The back side of this daylily highlight, et al. has been allowed to roam into the lawn; The owner/caretaker ever avoiding the spreading mass. I call this 'the fear of plants' or; thou shalt never damage a priceless perennial! Bah! Discuss broadly and set limits or ye shall be eaten!

         

The 'ditchlily' taking on its proper roll? There probably arent any other 'weeds' in that ditch. Nice work. In the second photo it's a little outta hand, but I think these guys 'get it'.

    

I've always liked alleyways. This really isn't one but it's nice to see the backside of buildings blossom anyways.


    


The village sits on greystone and shale. Some of the first structures built here were made of the grey stone. What fun it must have been to build these things!

    

A "boat house" overlooking Vermont shore on July 1.

           

I doubt there's a town anywhere that couldn't be made more beautiful by the considered use of plants.

[cohan]

Michael and Lori- many wonders
Lori, love the colour of the Geranium phaeum 'Springtime'!- oh to have 20 square metres of that instead of the fluorescent purple/blue himalayense we have
I'll have to look at those rose stems when I get a chance... I may have photos somewhere, but would have to really dig...

Michael- love the Potentilla thurberi, will have to try it sometime.. |I was looking at seed of Hydrangea petiolaris (I think, or a similar sp) last year, that would be another fun one to try... Did you say your property is a half acre? How long have you been gardening on it and what state was it in when you started? do you have native vegetation?

Re: acid plantings-- Lori, do you count Cornus canadensis and Linnaea among the things you find need/prefer the acid bed, or are they in the other category of things you just put in there? just curious, both grow everywhere here, where there is even part shade, and some of the soils are  quite clayey ('grey wooded' soil which does not have a huge humus content)... though spruce needles can and do reach any part of my acreage when the wind blows.. really need to use the ph testing papers Trond so kindly  sent..lol

Michael again- I enjoy the (sub?) urban scenes- I spent many happy hours wandering the streets of Toronto enjoying and photographing the plants and flowers- the 'outta hand' yards were often my favourites- assuming some nice things were put there to get out of hand!
I have a ton of common daylilies I dug up a year or two back (and another patch to dig) where they've spread over many years, and too close to my rock garden.. I haven't yet figured out what to do with them (the ones already dug, along with the Irises they have grown with -german? SDB, MDB, CBS, ABC, PPP-- can't say I have yet grasped the complex letter codes of garden Irises-- were plopped as chunks of 'sod' nearby the dig and are happily growing there two winters later.. but that is not where I want them either!)-- I think I will move them all to a grassy/forby native area at the edge of the property, and let them do their thing among the other vegetation between spruce trees and mower.. nothing short of chemicals would ever give such a pure display as your ditchlilies here! I will not spend every waking minute weeding daylilies!...lol

Tim- the Berkheya is indeed striking

[Howey]

Michael:  Love your "ditchlily" idea.  My neighbors, in order to get rid of grass at their curb -it was usually weedy and was and still is a mountain of snow pushed up on top of it by the snowplow in winter.  However, they dug it up and planted some really tough but actually quite attractive plants there that provide nice color throughout the growing season, beginning with yellow Heliopsis, red Shirley poppies, Datura (not exactly my cup of tea, nor that of the local Ministry of Agriculture) and ending up with some nice colored Autumn Glow Sedums.  This is a spot where nothing much will grow but they want to keep it looking nice - and they do.  I shall mention to them about the "ditchlily" which is flowering right now.  Fran

Frances Howey
London, Ontario, Canada
zone 5b

[Kelaidis]

I'm sorry I have been in absentia for several months: trips to Europe and all over the US compounded with springtime and work responsibilities kept me from posting (and I was stymied for a while when my logon lapsed)...but a very long spell of hot weather has allowed me to catch up a bit, and driven me to the computer. I shall perhaps do a garden walk this time of year (lots still happening), but I thought this would be a good place to post some of the highlights of the past few months in my garden and a few of my friends: it may take two postings to get them all!

1) Penstemon x barbatus hybrid ('Coral Baby' Horrible name!) at the Gardens at Kendrick Lake
2) Convolvulus assyricus at Sandy Snyder's rock garden late last April
3) Closeup of same
4) Escobaria sneedii var. leei in a trough in Gwen Moore's garden
5) Astragalus angustifolius in my garden
6) An overview of a part of my rock garden in late May (ice plant season!)
7) My favorite form of Daphne oleioides (either buxifolia or kurdica: lost track which)
Erodium absinthoides ssp. amanum in Mike Kintgen's gem of a garden
9) Delosperma FIRESPINNER in my private garden
10) Alkanna aucherana in a trough at Mike Kintgen's garden

[Kelaidis]

And MORE highlights of the last few months...

11) Monardella macrantha 'Marion Sampson' at the Garden at Kendrick Lake in May (still blooming some)
12) Closeup of same
13) Arctotis adpressa in the Watersmart Garden at Denver Botanic Gardens late April
14) Trillium luteum at Sandy Snyder's wonderful garden in Littleton
15) Sandy's crevice garden in late spring
16) Echinocereus dasyacanthus in Dryland Mesa garden at DBG
17) Escobaria sneedii var. leei at Denver Botanic Gardens
18) The crevice garden at the Colorado Springs Water Conservation Demonstration Garden in late April...
19) Osteospermum AVALANCHE in the Children's Garden at Denver Botanic Gardens
20) Salvia pholomoides blossom at Mike Kintgen's garden--his collection from Morocco.

[Bundraba!]

I will not spend every waking minute weeding daylilies!...lol

Cohan; That's the point of the exercise. Once these are weeded and strongly established; they like never need weeding again! Furthermore, if you know where the weeds are or may be lurking; which is, of course, not in the daylilies; you should be able to keep them at bay. To give brief answer to your other question about native flora on my small town lot (.8 acre): roughly; NO there is no "important" such. Fifteen years ago when I began the garden, I found a variegated hosta, a blue Iris, and a cut leaf form of Viola; all still here. However; in the mixed (white pine dominant) woods behind the house (recently destroyed for logs) there are extensive colonies of Mitchella repens, a variety of large ferns, and Montiopsis? sp. It supports plants that like a light sandy soil but does not seem to support things like Trillium and Arisaema. Mitchella has formed a patch way out in the corner of my lot under a big white pine. It, like the big hostas in my former post, draws my attention and thus may be used by me to, as I say, carve a garden into the rough. I've got a lot of work to do yet and June-July really makes that apparent. In total fear, I have not dained to time-lapse photo things like Oxalis corniculata, Glechoma hederacaea, spotted spurge, and numerous species of crab grass all of which may attain absurd dimensions in a very short period of time! Now I need another full time gardener plus one part time.

Panayoti. Thanks for those. Looks like I gotta get back to the drawing board as they say. That's Convolvulus assyricus? Wow!

[Tim Ingram]

Panayoti - what fantastic plants! The Monardella set against that red stone is inspired - a plant I have tried several times and failed with. I am also beginning to see the great following there is for cacti in American alpine gardens - the Echinocereus dasyacanthus is such an extraordinary colour and highly appealing. I am sure others have asked before but are there any prospects of a book based on the experiences of alpine gardening  at Denver and around about? I enjoyed Bob Nold's book immensely and despite our long tradition of alpine gardening in the UK we are starved of writing like this, and a sense of such a distinctive range of plants.

[Kelaidis]

Dear Tim,
    You are very kind indeed: glad you liked the pix! The Monardella macrantha is apparently a selection that is much more gardenworthy than the typical species: the picture I showed is taken at a public park after all! We have it all over Denver Botanic Gardens--if you need a start let me know once it cools off; there's lots of it hereabouts!
    I have helped produce a number of books that have quite a bit of content deriving from me over the decades....although not specifically alpine in content, they do have interest beyond our region: Durable Plants for the Garden is the history of the first 10 years of Plant Select, and a really great book that hardly had distribution outside the Denver metro area--a great injustice! Flourish was edited by me: a tribute to the first 50 years of horticulture at Denver Botanic Gardens, and finally "Gardening with Altitutude" wherein I wrote two chapters and generated the overarching vision: this, alas, is out of print. I have two book projects that should come to fruition in the next year or so...and I suspect I shall one day do a "rock garden" book--I am not in any rush!

You are right that there's not enough in the way of rock garden books lately: you would seem to be a first rate candidate to produce one!

[cohan]

Michael- I suppose the key is getting the daylilies absolutely weed free in the first place, but I am sceptical whether that's achievable here (without paid help) in the first place, and even more sceptical whether it would remain so afterwards- I suppose in semi/urban environments there are fewer incoming seeds etc but here (on my acreage I mean) natives and weeds rapidly establish on my woodash pile, piles of rocks, wood, concrete etc- so I can't see the daylilies keeping them out! We do have some very dense growth of chives and Geranium himalyense here, but even those are not weed free- just really hard to weed...
We did have a large area where daylilies and iris had established, and still a good sized patch of days, but far from free of other plants..

Panayoti, many beauties in there- the Escobaria sneedii is wonderful, and Echinocereus dasyacanthus is among my faves in the genus- sadly no hope of hardiness here and rather large for my indoor space...

[Bundraba!]

A considerable fight with the little point-and-shoot to get some of these. One day I'll get the confusing maze of settings figured out! This required some distance and cropping. Allium sibthorpianum has to be the perfect trough onion.



Phlox bryoides (muscoides) from calcareous Wyoming steppe (planted 2009). The secret to growing this is obvious in the photo: it's the old pennies!



I've never seen Minuartia caroliniana growing in this region (with the exception of this garden). It's native further south and is associated with pine barrens. I think it not a bad display for a sandwort.



Yeh, I wish it were all bright glowing orangey-red too. But I like it anyway: Monardella odoratissima, very widespread in the western third of the USA. I've tried others but so far this one from the Mogollon Mountains is the only one that's taken here. Come to think of it: there's plenty of red Beebalm in the back yard. Maybe the Hummingbirds can help me get something going.



A magnificent display of Yucca filamentosa.



Some garden shots taken in Willsboro where I live. The Methodist Church here had this big deal put in last year. It's pretty spectacular when it's all up in roses, Hydrangeas, daylilies, Hosta, and scads of other perennials; maybe just a bit "over the top" but: two thumbs up here! -and, at the same location Irma Halen's rock garden. These 'Adirondack Chairs' are at a B&B south of the village.

  

And finally; the Rock Garden Gods have comment on 2012. This big old stone trough was excavated just a couple houses up the road from me. Around here; stone hitching posts and step-ups aren't so rare as this. This almost never happens!

[Bundraba!]

Two fantastic little North American plants withstanding heat and drought well are Douglasia montana from Bighorn Mt. seed collected in 2009 and Eriogonum caespitosum.

 

An Acantholimon in morning light and another. These were both grown from AGS seed. AA kotschyi and venustum come to mind.

 

Allium caucasicum subspecies albidum and Sideoats by the side of the road.

 

This Opuntia did not come directly from J. Spain but that was said its provenence. I think it might be a hardy O. phaeacantha. The pads are big but it does burn in winter.



And a summer Gentian to cool things down.

[Lori S.]

Great to see you back, Panayoti, and with fantastic photos!  Your Delosperma 'Firespinner' is really taking the gardening world by storm, most deservedly!

And speaking of fantastic photos, Michael, your garden is wonderful, and what a pretty town you live in.  Will the stone trough be put to its proper use (that is, alpines  ), do you think?