The back half of the rear garden is prone to wet soils through the spring, or in any period with an inch or more rainfall in a week. In September last year there was more than a foot of rain from various hurricanes and tropical storms, and this part of the garden stayed waterlogged into…
Category: Native plants
The last dogwood blooms
Chinese dogwood (Cornus kousa) is the latest of the dogwoods to flower in my garden. The dogwood season began this year as the native dogwood (Cornus florida) began to bloom the last week of March, two to three weeks earlier than is typical. Hybrid dogwoods introduced by Rutgers University that combine the native American and…
It’s not New Orleans
My wife was in New Orleans over the weekend to visit an old friend. I was invited, but of course she and her buddy were just being polite, and didn’t really want me intruding on their time to visit. New Orleans isn’t my kind of town, but it has some great gardens in public spaces…
Yellow flag
In May frogs bellow at each other beneath the yellow blooms and eighteen inch tall foliage of Yellow Flag iris (Iris pseudoacorus, below). Hungry koi and goldfish lazily swim through the shallow water searching for a meal, and many thousands of tadpoles feed on bits of algae that cling to stones at the pond’s edge. …
Big and beautiful
I’ve promised my wife for several years that I’ll prune the Chinese snowball (Viburnum macrocephalum, below) that towers over the windows of our small library, but …. I can’t offer any excuses, I just haven’t done it (along with many other things I haven’t followed through on). The proper time to prune it is immediately…
Columbines and other goodies
Soon after the gardener is seduced by dazzling blooms to plant columbines (Aquilegia canadensis, below) a few dozen seedlings arrive, followed next year by several dozen. The seedlings are not bothersome, and if there are too many (or they are unwanted in a more orderly garden), the tiny seedlings are easily brushed away. If too…
The other dogwoods
The dogwood that is native to the eastern United States (Cornus florida, in bloom below) is a wonderful tree with beautiful large white flowers in early spring (actually white bracts that surround the small, undistinguished flowers), excellent autumn foliage color, and clusters of red berries that persist into early winter when birds pick them clean….
Black locust in bloom
Bordering my garden is a thicket predominated by black locusts (Robinia pseudoacacia, flowering below), willow seedlings, mulberry, and pernicious vines. Long ago I aspired to keep this area cleaned up to claim as part of the garden, though it’s outside my property. I’ve been mostly successful managing the long stretch of forest that borders the…
Too much moisture, too little, and just right
The dwarf crested iris (Iris cristata ‘Tennessee White’, below) is a vigorously spreading native to woodlands and along streams in the eastern and southeastern United States, so the gardener would suspect that it grows best with abundant moisture, and perhaps some shade. But, the iris grows best in nearly full sun, and I’m afraid that I’ve…
Sweetshrub and other April flowering shrubs
Sweetshrub (Calycanthus floridus, below) is native to much of the eastern United States. It’s not commonly found in gardens due to its unremarkable form and foliage, but I’m certain that it deserves greater consideration for shrub borders, and particularly for plantings at the partially shaded edge of wooded spaces. Sweetshrub’s April flowers are distinctive, though…
Ramblin' through Dave's Garden 