Mulch

Last year I was late.

This year I am early.

According to my calculations I need 20 yards of mulch.

!!!

I am going to discount that to 16 because I just don't believe it.

How many days will it take to spread 16 yards of mulch?  Grow, little plants, grow!

Brief and Poorly Photographed Longwood Visit

But it was lovely.  My friends bowed out because of the snow (piles of it in Philadelphia, made driving/parking pretty entertaining).  I circled the gift shop, admiring all the things I won't be able to buy until I finish educating my children, ogled the witch hazels on the hill by the cafe, had a spot of quick lunch admiring some orange-flowered witch hazel whose signpost was under a couple of feet of snow, and then went on to the conservatory.  I took the plant propagation tour, so I got to see one of the enormous greenhouses.  The arrangements are very complicated and clever-- snow melters, automated shadecloth, watering systems with plain water or fertilizer mixed by computer, coolers (to keep plants from blooming till just the right moment), seed-starting, cuttings, etc.  In the conservatory there were grapefruit blossom, lilies, and sweet alyssum smelling divine.  A gardener deadheading camellias gave advice (they are one of the few evergreens that will thrive under trees; winter sun is the killer, desiccates leaves and the roots can't pull up water from the frozen ground).

This is a tall variety of stock (Google search suggested this cultivar might be especially for greenhouses.)  Isn't it luverly?  

Butterfly bush trained as a standard.

This tree is planted quite close to the wall.  It has been discretely pruned to fit.

I also sang at a karaoke bar in Chinatown and visited with a number of friends, so overall it was delightful. However, I have to catch up on hugging my husband.  I'm blogging snuggled up next to him on the couch.  

First Buys of 2014

I have spent hours upon hours deliberating over my rose wish list.  DH murmured something about a Valentine present and was very pleased with the idea of getting me a live bush.  Enter Pickering Nurseries in Canada (also pored over Roses Unlimited, Heirloom Roses, Chamblees, Regan, and about five others).  I was still agonizing with my credit card number actually in place, when I picked up my laptop and inadvertently completed the order.  So, right or wrong, in March I should be getting bareroot Mayflower (a supposedly tough David Austen), Golden Celebration (slightly less tough, yellow climber ditto), and a vigorously pink climber known as Rosarium Uetersen.  What is unclear is whether these will go with anything else, particularly the violent pinks/reds of the knockouts I planted in Kit Island.  But the beauty of it is, I shall simply move the dang Knock Outs if I so choose, ha ha.

My problem is that I am currently Between Color Schemes.  I was always a pink/blue/purple girl, unapologetically English cottage, not so sure now.  I am craving more foliage but still a sucker for blooms.  Choosing roses is an exercise in decision paralysis.  The main problem is resisting the apricot pinks that make me melt, because they assort vilely with the Knock-Outs.

Also coming are a bunch of perennial seeds-- Campanula Blue Clips, caryopteris, gigantic Greek catmint (where is that going again?) and others.  If the postman can get through.  Piles upon piles of snow out there, no one stirring.  It's quite nice :)

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I don't recall ever seeing that on the thermometer before, the winters having warmed since I moved away from the heat island of Philadelphia and of course before that it was sunny (sob) Arizona.  I've seen it a few times this winter.  Brrrr.  Socked in by snow with more coming.

Which makes me all the more garden-obsessed.  My sweet MIL gave me a beautiful orange tree whose blooms are very therapeutic at this frozen time of year.  One nice thing about us plant people is that we never have everything: it simply isn't possible.  Very easy to buy for, that's us.

It's funny I'm still so focused on this garden because the nursing home really is pretty wretched.  Their 24 hour employee entrance and delivery area starts about 20 feet from our fenceline, which is only about 60 feet from our house.  So less than 100' away it's diesel trucks and 24 hour lights shining over the dumpsters and air conditioners.  I'd post a picture but it would be a bummer.  Research shows that people are suprisingly resilient about life's set backs and that seems to be the case here-- it is what it is, right?

At the moment my thinking for the very blank west foundation is handsome stuff that can tolerate hot, sunny conditions, to wit:

• Blue Chiffon Hibiscus (decided I Must Have This, even though I don't usually groove on hibiscus)
• Dragon Lady holly or the like-- it's evergreen, it's narrow, it gets berries.  
• Caryopteris to carry out the lots of blue theme
• New Jersey Tea, probably Marie Simon, for the bee/native factor
• A mass of something summer blooming-- thinking spirea is cheap and cheerful until the rest of the bed shapes up
• I have a couple small boxwood and a teensy April Blush camellia, which I actually sited after reading a fair amount on the subject--the guy liked a NW orientation so I'm trying it.  Right now it is sheltered by a dead or dying Japanese Maple that was never going to make it in that spot anyway.  
• Plug in liatris, peonies, maybe bearded iris
• Wall germander for the low evergreen factor
• et voila

Still have to measure REALLY well and plot it out on paper so I don't plant stuff too close.  So:  can I get all this planned by April?  Gotta hope!

What about

Viburnum "Dawn," which is apparently tall, narrow, arching, with fragrant pink in spring and good foliage thereafter?

With:  tall conical holly, mounding camellia, some Helleri Holly or small boxwoods for the front, and New Jersey Tea, baptisia, peony, and iris, and possibly caryopteris if there appears to be room in the middle. With some Rozanne geranium or ajuga to fill in.  And dwarf deutzia.  And it is not all going to fit.

West Facing Bed

Jotting notes--

I think I want a tallish narrowish evergreen in the first third (Dragonlady Holly probably-- won't eat up too much of the bed. Wish I could try a Red Oak Holly but we don't seem to get them around here, maybe not hardy enough?  I am not neglecting that feature in this very cold winter.)

A narrow, vase shaped thing for just behind and to the right of it-- Aronia?  Blackhaw viburnum much pruned?  Ninebark Summerwine?  I gather Cotinus gets too big, even pruned to within an inch of its life.

A flowering shrub in front and rightish of the vase-shaped thing-- thinking New Jersey Tea for this, as I want to try it and it's bee/insect friendly.

Tuck in baptisia and/or caryopteris.  Peony and iris would also do well in this hot sunny spot.

There's a teeny April Blush camellia to the far left... hoping it prospers, but time will prove.

I want something lower and green for visual relief-- I have some little boxwoods I can plant and move I suppose if they get too big.  My favorite look is tall green thing/medium flowery thing/evergreen skirt-- just a touch formal, perhaps because I live in town.  If I lived in the country, which I hope to some day, I would want something less buttoned up.  Comme ca:

I know it looks silly to put up these rather grand images, but they have common elements I love.  This further illustrates:

Noting in all of these gardens there is lots of green, which frames the flowers.

Not that I'm setting the bar high or anything.

*Noting these images come by way of Pinterest.  Pretty sure the first is by Jan Johnsen of Connecticut, a fabulous landscape designer whose work I have come to admire by way of the web.  The second is I think Sir Roy Strong's British garden.  The last is a lovely space I believe by Tara Dillard of Georgia.

Mount a Rescue

I have been literally WALLED IN with gardening books and magazines, and my laptop handy to reference Pinterest and Missouri Botanical's website.  I am a little tetched, people, but that's okay.  They say loss of interest in usual activities is a sign of depression, and since my obsession with gardening has only waxed with time, guess I'm in ok shape.

My most recent focus has been the West Foundation Bed, which according to Tara Dillard's theory of multiple axes, should look much better than it does.

To encourage myself, some pictures from the progress of last year:

Still a long way to go, naturally, but I am enjoying (most of) the process.  This is the space I am planning now:

This west-facing site is dryish and hot, backed by an expanse of glaring (but charming) yellow siding.  I figure any time in the back garden is going to be spent facing away from the nursing home and towards the house, which means a good deal of work remains to be done.  Last year we cardboarded and leaf-mulched most of the area-- I plan to plant it up as far as the retaining wall, pretty much, with just a stone pathway once I steel myself to fork over for the stone.






The space is about 14-16 in depth and about 30 feet long-- I did measure, though I better check that again.  My idea is that I need a tall narrow evergreen as the focus to one side of the bed, and something lacy and vase-shaped by the basement doors (awkward spot) to screen the window without blocking too much light.

This is with the benefit of a free trial garden photo-shop style program, which I dearly wish I could afford-- $500 is a lot of plants, alas.  Only a few plants are available in the trial but it allows you to get a rough sketch of placement/ideas.

I need plants that can take heat and afternoon sun. For the low shrubby things I am thinking caryopteris, spirea, bear's breeches, baptisia... plenty of choices there.  It's the shrubs behind the tall conical thing and the vase-shaped lacy thing on the right (represented by a Japanese maple) which are causing me angst.

Back to the books!