Touring nurseries and buying plants becomes a bit ho-hum after you have seen the same hollies and azaleas for thirty years. Not actually the same plants, of course, but squared off blocks of hundreds and often thousands of the same plant, one row after another for hundreds of acres. A field of a hundred thousand…
Category: gardens
Turning the heat on
The sudden extreme heat this past week has wreaked havoc with many of the perennials newly planted this spring. I don’t believe that the damage is irreparable, but a campanula and two corydalis are hanging by a thread, and several others are hardly better. All will require close attention through the summer, and I don’t know…
The cat’s away
I’m in Oregon for the week, twenty-seven hundred miles from home, and while I’m away there’s no one to tend the garden. Just before I left the steering went out on the lawn tractor, so I couldn’t cut the grass the day before. It will be a foot tall when I get back. And the…
Planting along the pond’s edge
I see too many ponds surrounded only by a naked border of stone. While a mix of boulders, smaller stones, and river washed gravel can be arranged to mimic the edge of a mountain stream, without plants the pond looks sterile and man-made. I have planted along the borders of the garden’s five ponds so…
Wilting in the heat
After a cool and relatively rainy spring the garden is lush with growth, but after the first bout of intense heat this week more than few plants are drooping at midday. For most plants this isn’t a concern, and many bigleaf hydrangeas wilt in the afternoon sun almost every day from now until September. Still,…
Spring pond update
There are five ponds in the garden, and for the first time in years I had to replace one of the pumps this spring. Several pumps have been working without a care for ten years, or at least as long as I can recall. I haven’t a clue what happened. One day it worked, the…
How many plants can be jammed into a garden?
Readers occasionally write asking for wider views of the garden rather than only close ups of flowers, and recently I’ve featured several of these. I often find that when I take photographs of more broad areas that the camera flattens the view so that there is too little contrast, with one plant hardly distinguishable from another. This…
Low care roses
I’m not a rose lover. I don’t cut flowers to bring indoors, and don’t aspire to grow perfectly formed or scented flowers. When I plant a rose it’s because it’s a sturdy and attractive shrub that blooms for a long period with a minimum of bother. Rose enthusiasts might turn their noses up at low…
Hostas
Hosta seedlings pop up in the garden frequently, but rarely in the places where you’d like them. They often grow in the gaps between stones in the paths, or an inch from the edge so that they must be dug and transplanted, or discarded. I don’t mind if hostas grow over the paths, but it…
The middle third
The rear garden is roughly divided into thirds, with three small ponds in the top third and thick, jungle-like planting so that one pond cannot be seen from another that is less than ten feet away. Stone paths meander through and two small patios provide vantage points to rest and enjoy the water features. The…
Squish, squish
Whenever I’m home or working in the garden, I wear a beat up, worn out pair of sandals that probably should have been tossed out long ago. They’re so often covered in mud that I see no reason for a new pair, so I’ll wear them until they disintegrate. My wife cringes whenever I wear…
A clematis for every need
The deck that is attached to the back of the house is four and a half feet above the ground on the downhill side, and for years I searched for the right plant to hide the area beneath it. I envisioned a vine that would grow quickly to cover the lattice and railing, and hoped…
Ramblin' through Dave's Garden 