Recently, I extolled the virtues of hellebores, and the profuse numbers of seedlings that require occasional thinning out, but also encourage sharing with other gardeners. Today, I’m pleased to report tiny seedlings that I am quite certain are from Jack-in-the-Pulpits (Arisaema triphyllum and others, below) planted in recent years. To protect the little treasures until…
Category: Japanese maple
Silverbell
A year ago, flowers of the Silverbell (Halesia carolina, below) were ruined by an early April freeze that most notably damaged tender new leaves of Japanese maples and mophead hydrangeas. While damage to the Silverbell was minimal besides the lost floral display, damaged foliage on maples and hydrangeas was evident through the year, with some…
More Japanese maples than necessary?
Yes, there are more Japanese maples (Acer palmatum) in this garden than necessary, but there is no need to count. There are thirty, or forty-some, but this is not a contest, and certainly there are gardens with finer and more numerous maples. With plants, I can get a little stupid, but my obsession with Japanese…
Strolling the garden with my wife
Yesterday, I accompanied my wife as she strolled through the garden, pruners in hand. Anyone who has followed these pages will be aware of her destructive tendencies, and thus I walked along to distract her and possibly to limit the damage. Along the stone paths, no branch or stray leaf is safe, and she takes…
Three decades in the garden
For one reason or the other, few gardeners will be around a single garden for three decades. Staying put for so long is no accomplishment, but there is a benefit in witnessing Japanese maples grow into middle age, to budget a modest expenditure each year that grows to fill a property so that no part…
Have a plan?
There should be no argument. The gardener is advised to have a plan before visiting the garden center, to go in with a list, if not of specifics, at least one that broadly defines his needs. Perhaps it is enough to think “I need a flowering tree” or “a Japanese maple”, or “a screening evergreen”,…
The end of cold winters, forever
In this unusually mild winter, and a particularly warm February, it is unsurprising for gardeners to pronounce the end of cold winters forever, all due, of course, to the warming of the planet. Certainly, I cannot recite numbers to document temperatures changes, but from a gardener’s prospective I can confirm exceptionally mild winters in four…
Modest plans for spring
In this second week of January, several seed catalogs and a few from mail order plant suppliers have arrived in the mailbox. Once, the box was stuffed with catalogs after the start of the new year, but today it is the email bin that overflows. It’s been a while since I’ve grown anything from seed…
The best ….. and the worst of it
Leaves have fallen, flowers faded, and now the gardener will reflect on the year past, and consider the year to come. Each year brings shares of joy and disaster to the garden in unequal measure, and again I am pleased that the balance decidedly favors the positive. Perhaps there has been a year or two…
Another leaf cleanup
In a burst of energy, leaves covering paths and patios were removed so holiday guests could wander the garden if weather permitted. The weather was splendid, and with the crowd inside I wished to get outdoors for more than a few moments to escape the heat of the kitchen, but duty prevailed. A week later,…
Fallen leaves
The driveway and stone paths have been cleared of leaves so that holiday visitors can make their way around the garden if weather allows. Leaves are shredded and distributed to cover bare soil, while most are left whole to decay by mid spring if they are not covering low growing shrubs. Oversized leaves from the…
More like autumn
Oddly, between bouts of unusually warm temperatures, the garden has begun to take on the more typical appearance of autumn. Late or not, maples (Acer rubrum) in the forest have turned to yellow, and while the garden’s dogwoods (Cornus florida, below) slowly turn to crimson, ones in the neighboring forest are in full blown autumn…
Ramblin' through Dave's Garden 