First shoots of the purple passion flower vine (Passiflora incarnata) pop up anywhere except where they’re supposed to. A steel obelisk stands above where the vine was planted, but the first sign of the passion flower in late spring is eight feet away, growing through gaps in the stone patio. These are plucked out, and…
Category: landscaping
A month of irises
Several clumps of Japanese iris (Iris ensata, above) surrounding the koi pond have been invaded by yellow flag (Iris pseudacorus, below). These are pried from the tangle of roots with great difficulty, and with only limited success. Yellow flag works splendidly to populate the gravel bog filtration area of the pond, but if left alone…
Japanese maples with a side of garden
My wife complains (again) that the ‘Crimson Queen’ Japanese maple (Acer palmatum dissectum ‘Crimson Queen’, below) planted beside the driveway is a problem. I believe this is the fourth year she has brought this to my attention, but possibly it is the seventh or eighth. In fact, the maple is not only beside the drive,…
Plant with caution (or not)
Some plants with yellow foliage just look sick. Others look great through the cooler spring, but fade horribly in the heat of summer. In any case, I suppose that yellow foliage should be used in moderation, and certainly there are superb gardeners who would not stoop to plant anything with a yellow leaf. On the…
Good Samaritan
Some things, I’ll never figure out. I hope that I’ve learned a few lessons over twenty-six years gardening this plot, but many mysteries remain. Our native Eastern dogwood (Cornus florida) is an understory tree that will flower a bit even in deep shade, though it blooms heaviest at the forest’s edge with more sunlight. The…
A deutzia that shouldn’t be missed
For a moment, I considered that flowers in the garden were finally beginning to fade, and that I might gain a bit of rest between our visits. As usual, I was mistaken. So, with updates due on late flowering dogwoods and Japanese maples, and the Japanese irises poised to begin flowering in only a few…
In the mud and the muck
The spot of damp ground where ‘Arnold Promise’ witch hazel died a slow death is a work in progress. Beautyberry (Callicarpa dichotoma ‘Duet’), black chokeberry (Aronia melanocarpa), and sweetshrub (Calycanthus floridus, below) will fill this void, but today the shrubs still have a few years to go before I’ll be satisfied with this space. In damp…
A lovely spring
For four weeks the garden has been superb. After a late start to spring that left at least this gardener muttering aloud, redbuds, dogwoods, and magnolias that typically flower earlier in March all flowered at once. Since, while one flower or another has been a bit tardy, there have been sufficient blooms to allow me…
What it is
“It is what it is.” I suspect I say this too frequently when one issue or another pops up in the garden. Most are relatively minor problems that have been years in the making, so why be too bothered about them today? And, show me the gardener who has not erred in planting too closely,…
Keep to the path
On this warm afternoon my wife prowled the garden looking for stray branches to chop, pruners in hand. But, before going further, I must admit that in late winter, in a moment of delirium I purchased these moderately priced, gear assisted bypass pruners to replace overpriced and undersized anvil pruners that often did more harm…
The koi pond in May
Along one side of the koi pond a gravel bog filter (below) is planted with tall, variegated sweetflag (Acorus calamus), yellow flag iris (Iris pseudacorus), pickerelweed (Pontederia cordata), and water lilies (Nymphaea). Pockets between boulders at the pond’s edge are planted with Japanese irises (Iris ensata), though a few clumps have been infiltrated by the…
Flowers in mid May
With a return of cooler temperatures I must take advantage to tidy up before the heat returns. The late crop of winter weeds is now mostly under control, but in this acre and a quarter garden weeding is an endless chore. Which is not to say that I work at it endlessly, but any time…
Ramblin' through Dave's Garden 