A few chilly nights have started me thinking about next year. Every time I walk by the Korean Sweetheart tree (Euscaphis japonica, below) I envision next spring when it will almost certainly grow another foot or two, and perhaps I’ll enjoy its first blooms. While today it is hardly taller than the mass of competing…

Frost is on the way, possibly tonight, but soon. My wife says the weather turned cold a week ago when muggy daytime highs in the eighties and nineties slipped into the seventies, but this is only cool, and thankfully so. Now, the forecast, in this week before summer ends, is for three nights dropping into…

In this very wet late summer I have continued to plant enthusiastically, dividing and transplanting from thick clumps in areas that are overpopulated, and ordering ferns and native orchids to plug into every small gap in shaded parts of the garden. This is work that typically is planned (if it’s planned at all) for spring…

Berries of several beautyberries (Callicarpa) have turned to purple and white in recent weeks, though the variegated ‘Duet’ and two new introductions are tardy in turning. In contrast to their unremarkable, tiny summer flowers, the berries provide a long and beautiful display. Beautyberries must be planted prominently to properly appreciate their berries, but the shrubs…

Dagummit! A newly planted variegated Japanese kerria (Kerria japonica ‘Fubuki-nishiki’) was nibbled by deer the night it was planted a month ago. I could not imagine that a skinny twig with only a few leaves would be worth the bother, but I suppose deer must sample choice morsels whenever they are found. Weeks after being…

Not that further inspiration is required, but a weekend on the western slope of Roundhead Mountain, without the distraction of internet, has encouraged  adding to the somewhat recently begun collection of ferns. My mostly shaded garden has included common Autumn, Cinnamon, Ostrich, Tassel, Christmas, Ghost, and Japanese Painted ferns for years, with volunteer Sensitive, Rock…

Arguing that bugleweed (Ajuga reptans, below) is not a weed, given its aggressive reputation, can be wasted effort. But, after two prior failed efforts in this garden when bugleweed was improperly sited and neglected early on, several areas now flourish, spreading vigorously but treading gently so as not to disturb neighbors. Now, I endorse it…

Two Yucca rostrata (below) were in dire straits when rescued several years ago. After the first winter, their fate was more in question. Finally, by this late spring they seem fully recovered, though this has little to do with my efforts. I must take small credit for planting them in an area that is slightly…

I am not a patient man, no matter that I often protest otherwise (unconvincingly, it seems). With a long established garden, I am reluctant to start small and allow any but the most vigorous of plants to grow up to match its neighbors. This is doubly true for trees, the reason that several Japanese maples…

Four of the garden’s five ponds are too shaded for waterlilies, and several waterlilies in the sunny, shallow bog area of the deeper koi pond were long ago crowded out by irises, pickerel weeds, and dwarf variegated cattails. Once, waterlilies flowered in all the ponds, but increasing areas of shade are the progression (not a…

A week ago, a two by four was set to brace one heavily ladened branch of an apple espaliered to the wall of the garden’s shed. I was concerned that the bent branch might break, but I need not worry any longer. The apples are gone. I suspect deer, ever present but mostly deterred by…

I believe that this relatively small, nearly yellow leafed hosta is a seedling, though I cannot be certain. This is a young hosta, probably two or three years old, that was transplanted to the edge of this shaded bed. Though most are uninteresting, several intriguing hosta seedlings have been discovered through the years. These are…