By most reports, leaves are late in turning this autumn, though with recent cold temperatures I expect this could change in a hurry. Oddly, mahonias and camellias, that often do not flower until mid November in this garden, are getting an early start. The vagaries of the interaction of weather and flowering are a bit…
Category: Flowering plants
A pink Carnation
Ideally, the gardener will love plants in his garden, or at the least he should not despise them. So, what to do with ‘Autumn Carnation’ Encore azalea? Unquestionably, ‘Carnation’ is a flowering machine, with first blooms in early August and now into the second week of October with no end in sight. I believed flowers…
An autumn update
After a warm and dry late summer, a week of cooler temperatures was greeted enthusiastically. But, this lasted only a few days until unusual heat returned. As folks often say, it’s not the heat but the humidity, and certainly both have been abnormally high for October. At least the dry spell has ended, though rainfall has…
A great find
At long last, a yellow flowered toad lily (Tricyrtis flava, below) has been procured of sufficient sturdiness and vigor that there are high hopes for its survival. While there is no reason that yellow flowered toad lilies should be more fragile than others, prior plantings have been skimpy specimens purchased by mail order, and with…
The garden’s ponds
Given the number of, and space in the garden allotted to ponds, there are disproportionate mentions of plants on these pages and few comments relating to water features. Except for discussion of snakes, that is, and after a summer of harassment from my wife, the one remaining Northern Brown is keeping a low profile. Probably,…
A purple coneflower
There are no purple flowered coneflowers (Echinacea purpurea) in the garden. Or not. Correctly, I’ve not planted any, but there it is, a tall seedling with a large purple bloom (below) standing tall above a compact clump of white flowered coneflowers (‘Powwow White’). Nearby, flowers of a second seedling appear more pink. It is clear…
A difficult late summer
September was difficult, not unusually so, but relatively hot and dry after a mild and wet earlier summer. Leaves of neighborhood sycamores are withered and brown, and though stress is less evident on other trees, continued dry weather could result in poor coloring of foliage in weeks to come. Perhaps cooler temperatures will ease effects…
Berries?
The ‘Sparkelberry’ hollies are flowering, which is not a showy event, but a necessity if there are to be bunches of red berries in autumn. A dozen paces down the hill a newly planted male counterpart ‘Apollo’ is also in bloom. For several years, sparse berries have made the absence of a male pollinator obvious….
A glorious spring
Each spring is unique, but to comment that one weather phenomena or another has never happened before is rarely correct. The gardener should not get too worked up about late freezes or fluctuations from frost to ninety degrees within a week. This year, late winter drought was followed in mid spring by weeks of heavy…
Nearly three months of dogwood blooms
For better or worse, this is a garden oriented around trees, and of collections of too many plants that have captured my favor. There are nearly forty Japanese maples, with a few small ones in containers placed on patios, but most nearly mature trees that have been planted over three decades. There are a dozen or…
The best day, again
If the garden was just right a few weeks ago, I cannot imagine that it is either better or worse today. But, it has changed, with one dogwood fading while another begins to flower, and so on so that the garden has changed considerably in the few weeks. I don’t suppose there are more or…
Favorable conditions for flowering
In recent years, several Oakleaf hydrangeas (Hydrangea quercifolia, below) flowered sporadically with an increasing canopy of shade beneath tall maples and tulip poplars along the forest’s edge. In late summer last year, a limb of one maple that arched far over this side yard garden fell on a breezy afternoon, fortunately inflicting only minor damage…
Ramblin' through Dave's Garden 