The Perennial Plant Association has selected False Indigo, Baptisia australis as Perennial of the Year for 2010. This not a hot, newest introduction, but an old time, sturdy native. In my garden baptisia was set up for failure. The subsoil excavated to build my large swimming pond was mounded on the lower side of the…
Month: January 2010
Wild flowers
Beginning in late February with helleborus and snowdrops, then crocus and daffodil, dogwoods, redbud, and magnolia, through December with late autumn blooming camellias and mahonias, there are more flowers in this garden than I could possibly count. There are single daisies and double peonies, dainty blooms and monstrous hydrangeas, and flowers with amazing coloration and configurations. Some flowers are…
Favored conifers
I thought there were more evergreens in the garden, but looking about on a cold winter afternoon I’m surprised by the openness, the lack of enclosure, even in a mature garden with dozens (perhaps too many dozens) of large trees and hundreds (yes hundreds!) of shrubs. This place is a jungle late April through early November. Then,…
After the blizzard
Most traces of almost two feet of snow three weeks back have disappeared from the neighborhood. Except in my garden! A stand of mature trees bordering the southwest shades the property so that snow and ice linger for weeks after the rest of the world has thawed. The roots nestled below this thick white blanket…
Reflecting on a winter’s eve
Winter is the season for pondering, what could be, what can be? What happened, and where did I go wrong? (It’s a long story) My one acre garden has been expanding for more than twenty years, and is overflowing with common dogwoods and viburnums, redbuds, nandinas and hollies, lots of this, a few of that, and a…
Ramblin' through Dave's Garden 