This week I’m headed to Oregon. A surprising number of plants sold in garden centers in the mid-Atlantic and northeast are grown there. Mild temperatures and low humidity promote a long growing season without the stressful heat and humidity of the east coast. Even when temperatures reach triple digits on rare occasions in the Summer, nighttime…
Category: gardens
Ooh! That smell?
Can’t you smell that smell? Who stashed a dead body under the deck? I confess, it was me. Not a body, the ghastly stench is from Amorphophallus konjac, cousin to the Amorphophallus titanium that is said to be the world’s largest flower, and certainly the smelliest. The lovely scent is reminiscent of rotting flesh, thus the call…
Screening plants – Cryptomeria
Many of the popular choices used as screening plants are rather ordinary when planted as a lone speciman. Large, fast growing evergreeens such as Leyland cypress and Green Giant arborvitae are fine plants, and not ugly, but are not distinguished by color or texture that make them attractive as a single plant. Cryptomeria, however, is an excellent choice as…
May showers bring …May flowers
A deficit has become a surplus. The month began with rainfall totals a bit below average, but that is a distant, soggy memory. The garden is a lush jungle of foliage and flowers, the monstrous hostas arching over the paths, rain soaked branches of stewartia heavy with flower buds tumble over the granite bench by…
Spring pond tour
I’ve neglected the ponds long enough. For weeks it’s been nothing but flowers and more flowers. Finally, Saturday was sunny and warm, so the raft was brought out of storage (actually it spent the Winter tucked under the Silver Cloud redbud) and launched into the swimming pond for a couple hours of peaceful floating. The…
Slow down … be happy
I hate trends, jargon, psycho babble, and landscape architect-speak (curvilinear, spatial planes, and such). “Studies” bother me. My wife recently prepared a talk for a public speaking course about studies that show health and intellectual benefits from being in the garden. I can’t imagine how you can put a number on this, but they did, and the…
Stumblin’ through May
My back is killing me! The wife and I drove down to Georgia to visit our son over the weekend, my first weekend away from garden chores since early March. The major tasks in the garden are long ago accomplished, but there’s always a weed to pull or an errant branch of this or that…
A rainy night (and day) in Georgia
My wife and I drove down to Georgia for the weekend to visit our son Zach, who’s in grad school at the University of Georgia. He was a bit gimpy from back surgery a couple days earlier, but while his fiancee went to friends’ wedding we went to the State Botanical Garden. UGA is somewhat…
Sunny days are here again!
After nine or ten days of rain, and scarcely a glimpse of the sun during that time, sunny days have returned. Though the temperatures are cool, with nighttime lows in the forties, blooming plants have picked up the pace. There are flowers popping out all over the garden, and buds that will open in days…
What’s that blooming next to the highway? Part 2
One after another they bloom. We call them weeds, but many of the flowering plants on roadsides are the same ones we buy in garden centers. Some are unremarkable, others delightful. Some capture our eye, and we wonder, what is that, and will it grow in my garden? In early May flowers are popping up…
What’s blooming in early May?
Thunder is rumbling and rain is pelting the window as I write these lines. Nine straight days of rain, and counting. The sun has popped out for a few minutes here and there today, a hopeful sign that this weather pattern might soon end. Still, the progression of blooms marches on, though more slowly with sunshine lacking…
What’s that tree blooming next to the highway?
What is that tree blooming on the side of the highway? The one with light purple flowers that look like Wisteria, except the panicle points up rather than hanging down. This is Paulownia tomentosa, often seen in cheap looking ads from mail order nurseries called the Empress tree or Princess tree. The ads tout its…
Ramblin' through Dave's Garden 