Summer, Fall...Winter?

June

Well, this has certainly been the craziest few months. Canceled plans and lots of staying at home did give me more time to work on the garden, especially at the beginning of summer.

Aren't June gardens beautiful?

July

This summer was quite hot and dry for New England. I spent a lot of time watering and watering... and taking photos!

This spring I started posting pictures of the garden on Instagram.  While I'm not on social media a lot anymore, I have been enjoying Instagram.  Posting pictures is quicker than blogging, and I love seeing other photos of gardens and plants!

August

Somehow life still seems busier than ever with everyone home all the time - lots of cooking and cleaning and trying to keep everyone organized.

With a serious health risk in the family, my husband is fortunate to work remotely, and the kids are in virtual school.  Thankfully, school has been going relatively well, and the kids have some really great teachers that have been working hard to make things go smoothly.

September

Unfortunately, with a family member with a possibly worsening health issue, the one thing that is daunting is dealing with such things in the middle of a pandemic.

Days of doctor's appointments and lab tests involve going in to Boston to the hospital - exactly where we were trying to not end up.  The doctors are trying to get everything done as quickly as possible as our COVID numbers in Massachusetts are increasing.

October

Other than the doctor visits, October in New England has been glorious.  Fall is my favorite time of year, and the changing of the leaves has been spectacular this year.

Well, until yesterday anyway...

A record for an October snowstorm here, of course.

Seems on par for 2020, right?

Happy gardening?

Canada Lilies

There are only three true lilies native here in the Northeast, and one of them is the Canada Lily, or Lilium canadense. (Our other native lilies are Turk's Cap Lily and Wood Lily.)

Canada Lily

Three years ago I bought three lily plants from Garden in the Woods, a native garden and nursery, and planted them in the gazebo garden.  They took a bit to get established, but now are flourishing.

Sometimes also called wild yellow-lily or meadow lily, Canada lilies are native to eastern North America and found in open woodlands, moist meadows, and savannas.  They prefer dappled or partial sunlight and medium to moist soil and are hardy from zone 3 to 9.

My lilies bloomed for about three weeks from the later part of June through early July, with gorgeous apricot and yellow flowers, freckled underneath.  Canada lilies may be different in coloration, though, ranging from yellow to red-orange.

These lilies attract Halictid bees (aka sweat bees) and large butterflies such as Swallowtails and Great Spangled Fritillaries.  The only thing I actually noticed enjoying my Canada lilies, however, was a hummingbird.  I got some great pictures of it... if only the memory card had been in my camera.

I keep all my lilies in my protected gazebo garden so that the deer don't eat them.  I have spotted a few of the invasive Lily Leaf Beetles in my garden, but on my other, non-native lilies.  It's the first time I've really noticed the beetle in my garden.  They have released several parasitic wasps throughout New England for a biological control, so I do hope that they won't become a problem.

Historically Canada lily was used medicinally for such things as stomach disorders, dysentery, rheumatism, irregular menstruation, and snake bites.  The buds and roots of these lilies were traditionally eaten by Native Americans, and the bulbs are said to have a bitter or peppery flavor.  Some sources label the lily roots as 'starvation food' eaten in times of famine, so I don't think I shall be trying them any time soon.

I would rather have the flowers in my garden anyway.

Happy gardening!

Fire the Gardener?

During the winter I always come up with so many plans for the garden, and it is always right about now that I realize just how many of those didn't come to fruition due to the laziness of the gardener.  (I really should fire her...)  

Lonicera sempervirens 'Tangerine Princess'

I have a shoebox full of seeds not sown, and my deck is full of seedlings not planted.  A new garden section isn't dug, and the beds are not all nicely weeded and mulched (even though I promised myself that this year would be the year.)

Thankfully it is also easy to overlook all those faults.  This time of year the garden is usually bursting with blooms that far overshadow the weeds, and this summer is no exception.

Clockwise from top left:  hellstrip and front garden, Delphinium elatum 'Million Dollar Blue', Clematis 'Niobe', driveway garden, 'The Wedgwood' Climbing Rose

And there are some accomplishments this year to celebrate.  The overabundance of bulbs ordered in winter might have been planted on the late side of spring, but some are already in bloom, such as this Aztec Lily.

Sprekelia formosissima, aka Aztec Lily

And, thanks to my new gazebo garden that keeps out the deer, I am finally able to grow lilies.

Clockwise from left: Lilium martagon 'Pink Morning', Lilium pumilum, Lilium canadense

The gazebo garden is also full of poppies grown from seed this spring.

'Bridal Silk' Shirley Poppy

(Though when I say 'full' of poppies, I mean it, as not a whole lot of thinning happened....)

a rather full gazebo garden

I am am so excited to see my 'Princess Kate' Clematis in bloom for the first time this year.  I planted it two years ago, but transferred it to the gazebo garden last fall after it kept getting nibbled by rabbits.  When I bought it, there were conflicting reports about whether or not it would be hardy in my zone 6 garden.  Thankfully, if it made it through last winter with its lack of snow cover, it is most definitely hardy.  I love clematises, and this one is such a beauty.

Clockwise from top left: Clematis 'Roguchi', C. 'Lemon Bells, C. 'Princess Kate', C. 'Bees Jubilee' (I think)

There were a few plants lost from the winter, but more than enough in the garden have thrived and grown to make up for them.

Maybe I won't fire the gardener after all.

A Month of Epimediums

We had a cool, rainy spring here in New England.  Finally in May temperatures started to slowly rise, and everything turned green.

This year I declared May 'the month of Epimediums'.  Epimedium (aka fairy wings, barrenwort, bishop's hat, or horny goat weed, as you might call it) started blooming in my garden at the beginning of May.  They bloomed throughout the month, with the latest one finally dropping its flowers on the last day of the month.

Epimedium × warleyense

Epimediums are common in Japan and China, but they were largely unknown to western gardens until a few decades ago.  It is thanks to a few dedicated lovers of this genus that they are now much more widely known and mentioned here when gardeners talk about plants for that dreaded 'dry shade'. 

white-flowering epimedium

One such epimedium enthusiast is the hybridizer Darrell Probst of Massachusetts.  He hunted and collected seedlings on expeditions in Asia along with his interpreter, Joanna Zhang, and networked with other enthusiasts such as the late Harold Epstein.

Epimedium × rubrum

In 1997 Darrell Probst and Karen Perkins opened Garden Visions Epimediums, a small retail mail-order nursery in central Massachusetts dedicated to these plants.  Darrell has largely moved on to hybridizing coreopsis (anyone else have a Big Bang series coreopsis in their garden?), but Karen still owns and operates the epimedium nursery.

Garden Visions

Garden Visions is open for just a couple weeks a year in May to visit and shop in person.  May is always a busy time of year, and I have been trying to find time to drive out there every year since I moved up here.  This year I finally succeeded.

It is a small nursery, but it contained an astonishing number of varieties of epimediums.

Clockwise from top left: E. lishihchenii, E. wushanense, E. sempervirens 'Cherry Hearts', E. × 'Pink Champagne',  E. grandiflorum var. violaceum 'Bronze Maiden'

I visited on a chilly, rainy day during the first week in May.  There wasn't much in bloom yet when I went, but many epimediums are also known for their stunning foliage, especially as they first emerge.

Clockwise from left: E. 'Mottled Madness', E. × versicolor 'Cupreum', E. sempervirens 'Variegated #1'

I loved seeing the growing beds behind the plants for sale.  New epimediums in the making!

Garden Visions also sells a few unusual companion plants, such as bloodroot, one of my favorite spring ephemerals.

growing beds of bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis)

Most people know of epimediums as groundcover plants for dry shade, but the genus is diverse. Some are clumping, some are spreading.  Some are evergreen, some deciduous.  And while some of the spreading types do tolerate dry soil, they usually prefer moisture.  Most of the epimediums in my garden are pass-a-longs from a generous friend who has a moist, shady garden where they spread happily.

Epimediums are hardy from zone 5 to zones 7, though there are varieties that can be grown in colder or warmer zones.  They bloom in spring and are best divided in fall.   They are widely known in Asia as a medicinal plant - thus the nickname 'horny goat weed'.  (Legend has it that a Chinese goat herder noticed his flock grazing on a patch of epimedium and then were afterwards much more 'active'.) Thankfully, while goats might eat this plant, the deer and bunnies won't.  

Epimedium 'Pink Champagne'

It was amazing to see so many different epimediums in one place at Garden Visions.  Of course, the hardest part was figuring out which ones to take home with me...

Happy gardening!

Traits of the Most Obliging Plants

The nicest plants in the garden are first and foremost, of course, free.

Preferably they have been given to you by a lovely and generous friend, so that every time you see your plants you can be reminded of them.  Such is the case with my beautiful dahlias.

Amiable plants also pop up in the garden even though you never bought them.  Perhaps they came as a freebie with another plant you bought and you never really even noticed it until it surprised you with delicate yellow blooms one day, such as this Yellow Corydalis in the shade garden. 

Nice and polite plants also faithfully bloom all summer even with complete neglect from the gardener.  This Threadleaf Coreopsis that grows next to the driveway has slowly expanded every year and seems to always be in bloom.  I don't even remember ever cleaning up dead foliage after winter (though I'm sure I do?)

Of course the best plants come back every year after winter - even if they are not rated hardy for your zone.  My 'Priscilla' Gladiolas shocked me with their return after a harsh winter.  Looking online, it seems this variety is among the hardiest of the showy gladiolas.  I hope it keeps coming back. That would be quite nice and obliging of it.

The most polite plants also keep popping up in the garden even after a gardener is sure that she has killed it.  Good to see you again, Viola walteri 'Silver Gem'.

A really obliging plant produces both food and beautiful flowers.  Of course, if the plant was truly obliging, those flowers would be fragrant...  Check, check, and check for the Chinese Red Noodle Bean!

flowers of the Chinese Red Noodle Bean

Other amiable plants put on such a show every year that visitors are in awe of the fact that the gardener managed to grow such large flowers.  (Shhh, don't tell them that 'Cranberry Crush' Hibiscus naturally makes those giant flowers, no matter what I do to it...)

Not all plants have such showy flowers. A well-mannered plant works whatever blooms it has with gusto for the pollinators.  This Liatris ligulistylis might have blooms that are straight out of a Dr. Seuss book, but it is completely irresistible to Monarch Butterflies.

The best plants of all realize that their gardener planted them in the wrong spot and MOVE THEMSELVES over a couple feet to a better one (and one where the gardener was struggling to grow other things).  I swear I did not plant this Great Blue Lobelia there.

So many lovely and obliging plants in my garden!  Now if only one of my plants would be nice to enough catch and eat some of those pesky bugs outside...

Ah, thank you dear Pitcher Plant!  That's very considerate of you!

Do you have any particularly obliging plants in your garden?