Populist Gardening, or Why Fine Gardening is Not Getting My 29 Bucks

Today I splurged on an issue of Fine Gardening, lured by the cover article on catmints, my all-around fave and trusty garden BFF.  I spent the equivalent of the cost of a perennial, mainly because my hands were full in the check out line and I couldn't gobble up the pretty pictures and text while waiting (I'm a fast reader). The article by the no-doubt noted expert made it clear that while many of his garden friends "made a face" discussing catmints, and he himself would be "just as happy never to see Knock-Out Roses (insert botanical name) and catmint planted again," he felt these worthy garden subjects, etc etc.

I have been comically irritated ever since, to the point where I am pretty sure Fine Gardening is not getting any more of my personal simoleans.

The reason being, it's a question of taste, right? Since when  is it a good idea to disparage someone's taste?  And why on earth would I shell out $7 for said disparagement?  You could say Knock Outs are overplanted, or you don't happen to like them, or you're worried Rose Rosette will take out 20% of the landscaping in your  zip code. But this hastening to dismiss reminds me of 15 year olds navigating the shifting heirarchy of which bands are cool, in case they fail to curl the lip at the right moment.

Common plants are common because they are pretty and tough.  Thanks to economies of scale, they also tend to be cheap. Watching my expensive landscaping fry in this killer heat, pretty, tough and cheap are looking awfully good. This nostril-flaring business ("Oh, THOSE") is just about as silly as can be, unless, I suppose, the magazine is geared for those who want to make sure they're flaring their own nostrils appropriately (Cover Article:  "It's Still Okay to Like Sambuca Black Lace!")

Okay, end of rant.  You can come back in now, it's safe.

Perhaps I'm so touchy because the heat is killing my new lacecap hydrangeas.  I am going to rig some shade netting and fret some more.  I worry constantly about my Vanderwolf Pines and how much to water.  I am always digging my fingers anxiously into the dirt.  The viburnums, Limelight and oakleaf hydrangea, plumbago, and of course the Knock Outs and catmints (gentle cough) are sailing through so far. Magnolia seems okay though I keep eyeing it suspiciously, frankly because it looks like a big gardenia and I can't keep gardenia alive.  The suicide instantly when they cross into the premesis.  It's only mid-July and these poor plants have endured so much heat stress in the last two weeks.  Worry, worry, fuss, fuss.

Still noodling on what to mass in the West bed.  Camellias crossed my mind-- bear with me, I read that a Northwest exposure is good when you're further North-- but then North seems to be shifting these days.  Too expensive and risky.  "Peppy and cheap" is my motto.  Honestly the Little Lime hydrangeas are shapely and refreshing and doing well nearby.  I thought of New Jersey Tea, but I can't remember seeing it in person.  There's good old Inkberry Holly.  I love caryopteris but I can't quite picture them with that cutleaf Japanese Maple which has been moved twice already.  I had thought of a layer of Little Limes, then a fronting of caryopteris... with JM?  Nah.  Abelia?  Snowberry? Bayberry? Beautyberry? Beri beri?  Clearly time to stop.

Wait-- I KNOW.

Fine Gardening, avert your eyes!

Hot

What more can be said?  A whole week of 90+. Thank God we had plenty of rain so far so that the plants are in good shape going into this.  But of course I am anxiously attending every one of my substantial new aquisitions this year.  My planting list for this spring, apart from the professionally planted trees and shrubs, would include...

*Dwarf clethra Hummingbird I snagged for $5 each at Lowe's on clearance

*Two Little Henry Virginia Sweetspire also on clearance but alas not for $5

*Three additional blueberries I got with $$ my grateful MIL gave me after I took her for cataract surgery and hung with her through post-sedation dizziness and vomiting-- naturally I don't expect or wish for recompense, but the blueberries are awfully nice <G> Planted with a bucketful of peat and some pelletized sulphur and crossed fingers.  OK so far.

*Sedums and aurelia for the rock garden, Knock-outs, baptisia, veronica and catmint for Kit Island

plus all the other stuff.  Hydrangea look all withery by day but when I take a sounding they're not too dry, just too hot :(  Terrified of overwatering the new evergreens but under is no good either in this heat.  Limelights are holding up great and just coming into bloom... fabulous plants.

So:  the current focus of my brainpower, such as it is, is the West Bed, which will eventually be something like 26' by about 10-12 feet, earlier discussed.  For review--    Part of this bed is prepared with topsoil over plain brown paper and thick hardwood mulch over that, so it should be nice come fall.  The edges need to be extended  into a sinuous and gracious curve, which I will get to hopefully in the next month.  But MAINLY I need to plan this space so I'm pleased with it and not looking at a haphazard vexation.  This is going to a hot area against yellow siding with lots of pounding afternoon sun. I want repetition, I want charm (the entrance to the garden from the garage cuts through it), and I want to further the color scheme I have going back there, which is some fairly hot pinks/purples/blues, perhaps with some cooling lime-y greens.

Some ideas:  stepping stones flanked by iris-- as in

leading to the garage door.  A little boxwood tucked in near the front at each side.  Some firmly pink peonies tucked in there.  Brian wanted a Dragonlady holly in there.  I need some repetitive shrubs to underplant the Holly/tall thing.  Could do mixed Neon Flash or A Waterer spirea with caryopteris, although the bloom times would not be optimal.  Little Lime?  The greeny color of the new blossoms is very nice.  Could do more KO roses, knaturally, but I think the pink kind would look urpy with the Japanese maple.  I need something calm and green and not too glamorous so that the little specimen bits stick out.  Hmmmm.....

Here's a view I took earlier in the summer from the back corner of the yard.  Just fun to see the forms evolving.  Long way to go, admittedly.

Behind the spruce is Kit Island.

I know it doesn't look like much, but I made this bed from scratch and I am ridiculously proud of it.  The Limelights have put on a lot of growth-- can't wait to see them do their thing later in the summer.

How Do You Eat an Elephant?

Why would you?  Who eats elephants?

Anyway-- so many areas to plan, and plant (and pay for.)  Must take on one at a time.  The areas in my 60X90 foot yard all suddenly have names-- Kit Island, Hemlock Hillock, the Rock Wall, and the Garage Bed which totally needs a better name.   Let's focus today on Garage Bed, which is on the West side of the garage wall, currently about 8x20 although it is meant to get bigger, to pretty much fill the grassy area in the picture.  There is presently a Dancing Peacocks Japanese Maple, a big fat peony, a Peach Drift Rose, a lone bearded iris that miraculously sustained itself in its original plastic pot for something like 3 years, four inches of topsoil over paper and a whole lot o' mulch.  At the moment this is pretty much full sun.  Brian's plan calls for a Dragonlady Holly which I will probably do, but not right now because the answer to "How much have you spent?" would be "Way too."  

It looks like this:

Not too thrilling as is.  I am thinking shrubby and beautiful because I have to watch how much work I make for myself with perennials, at least until some things get established. I need to sit with my books and my graph paper and Brian's plan and craft something.  Ideas most welcome.

For fun, here's the rock wall which the guys finished last weekend.  Isn't it dear?  I planted Sedum Vera Jameson and Dragon's Blood along the top, along with some aurinia I got on sale at Lowe's ($1 each), some lantana, moss rose, and lamium.  Is it lamium?  Silver annual.  Brain fart.  Maybe I should throw in all those self-seeding thunbergia going wild on the AC trellis.  In particular I need some fabulous specimen for the 3x3 spot where it ends on the left (not shown!) which is filled with expensive imported Garden Soil and ready for something totally awesome.  Which I have not been able to figure out.  Anybody?

Compare

Two months apart.

Perennial Geranium, What's Cheap at Walmart, and Too Many Notes

Click to admire them bigger.

Rozanne

Striatum, I think?

OK, not Karmina, don't know where that picture went.  This is my Carefree Beauty which is beserker this year.

Scene of way too damn much to do

What's cheap at Walmart right now (NB:  I spend a lot of money at independent nurseries.  Swear.)  Tub o' foxglove for $10, ditto delphinium $12.  Peach Drift Rose for $10.  Iris Caesar's Brother (ok it's small) for $7.  Small Twist N Shout or Endless Summer Hydrangea for $15.  The foxglove, delphinium, and Peach Drift came home with me.  I was planning the peach drift for the Special Spot by the Putative Rock Wall, but the color appears to be a no-go for the violent pinks I have going so far back there.  So I am in the usual gardener's dilemma of trying to find a suitable spot for my irresistible bargain goody.  No room in the south bed At All-- I am so proud of that bed, everything is thriving (thus far).  The Walking on Sunshine rose my dad bought me at Hershey Gardens is splendid===>

Plan of attack for the mountain of work, er, happiness in the backyard: continue laying paper, topsoil, and mulch, starting with the west side of the house, and then if any's left over moving across the back fence line.  Keep building the wall with those cream puff, light as a feather rocks.

Spent two hours working in the church garden this morning.  It is brutal crazy hot suddenly, in the 90s.  I am pretty much indentured to my new trees and sprouting grass, not to mention a family of five requiring laundry, shopping, cooking, and errand running services. Today, for example, included:  SAT run for elder daughter, Walmart, church garden, home, SATs again, Panera, Home Depot, Autozone, home again. Giant grocery, home again.  Throw in mowing the lawn, watering, making dinner.  Macy's, JC Penny, Gap, Children's Place, Sears to find fifth grade promotion dress for younger daughter (OK, they're all in the same mall.)  Home again, jigitty jig.   No one is twisting my arm to buy and care for ALL THESE PLANTS-- inside AND out.  MORE COMING IN THE MAIL. MUST STOP.  NEED TWELVE STEP PROGRAM.  STAGE INTERVENTION, PLEASE.

So many new areas to plan.  Don't want to devour all my happiness at once, plus, I can't afford to plant all this new space.  Also, I am TIRED from moving a large portion of the 18 yards of mulch and 7 yards of topsoil that have been sitting in my driveway.  Luckily today it's raining so I am on enforced rest.  Though I guess there is no law against mulching in the rain.

When overwhelmed, I fall back on bullet lists:

• Landscaping project was hairy at times, but had a happy ending.  There were some disappointments-- my beloved serviceberry, root pruned and threatened with being moved, went into instant fall mode, turned yellow and dropped a bunch of leaves.  Brian the landscape architect told me this is a sign it may pull through-- better than instant death, I guess.  I lost a very nice Abraham Darby (my fault).  We did not move the stray Green Giant.  It was too Giant, too close to the fence (not enough root ball) and our crazy spring weather was hot at the time (turned cool again).  We planted a tiny one in that spot which looks very comical.
• Many pluses, to wit:
• I LOVE the grading.  SO MUCH BETTER than unsatisfactory slope.
• Three flower and Japanese maples appear to have transplanted beautifully.
• Love my big trees. Big uptick in bird population.
• The guys were great, taught me a lot, and worked hard in the heat to get things put in place, including a start on--
• The rock wall!  We are going to have a stone retaining wall! Eventually!  Once we pile the rest of those rocks!
• Much distraction from giant nursing home, although, really, I keep coming back to it.  It's kind of hard to ignore.  Deep breaths, reminding self that people encounter all kinds of dreadful misfortunes and if the worst that happens to me, ken ahora, I'm doing okay.  

My MIL gave me a check for some plants which I turned around and spent on Bluestone Perennial's 50% off sale.  We have this mound, known as Kitty Island after my fifth grader who was in charge of arranging the topsoil. She has excellent spatial relations :)  I am picturing something along the lines of

From Jan Johnsen Pools and Landscapes

I love the combination of roses, blue (sea holly?), and evergreen.  I put in three pink and one red Knock out, and have spent my loot on two kinds of my beloved and dependable catmint (Walker's Low and Souvenir de Andre Chaldron), some spiky veronica, and blue baptisia.   Need something evergreen and foliag-y in there too.

You can see Kit Island in the back there.  It's bigger than it looks :)  Ignore the bearded guy with the wheelbarrow, he is not technically part of this composition, or at least not a stationary part.  I like to arrange him where ever I need an attractive focal point.  Kit Island is away in the back with the staked maple.  In front of that is the Circle Lawn (everything has names now!) secured by the Putative Rock Wall.  And I don't think I have revealed a shot of The Distractor, which is the azalea, hydrangea, box, and hemlock composition designed to sort of draw the eye from the Temple of Old Persons dominating the landscape.  I'm sure it will be nicer when it has actual old people in it. 

I don't like to show this shot as, to this point, all I can really see is NURSING HOME.  But the hemlocks will grow, right?  Right.

Since this picture was taken we have mulched, planted plumbago, a very small Japanese Snowbell "Emerald Pagoda," and on the back slope behind the hemlocks two oakleaf hydranges, "Snow Queen" and "Alice." Still on the track of a Snowflake, reputedly double.  Theoretically flagstone goes in front.  We'll find the energy somewhere.  At least we got to eat a lot this weekend without putting on (more) weight :)

The children helped us cardboard, topsoil, and mulch a forty by 10 foot section on the north side of the yard.  Much hand rubbing and planning about what goes there.  

Lots more plotting but I'll stop for today.  In closing-- my catmint and Jupiter's beard a-bloom:

Happy spring!