Here we are approaching the end of May and I have been sadly remiss in terms of reopening this blog for spring, my only excuse being that this has been a month of intensive planting here on the farm and I have found it very difficult to compose with a trowel in my hand. But what a glorious spring it has been: cool and wet, with everything holding long and strong from the daffodils and muscari that carpeted the woodland three weeks ago to the azaleas, alliums and bluebells that are among our chief glories now. We planted a sweep of miniature triandrus daffodils ‘Hawera’, tall purple allium ‘Gladiator’ and short pinky-lavender allium karativiense down by the creek in front of the house last fall, and they have been blooming nonstop, first the daffodils, now the allium, for a full month now. The amsonia, bachelor buttons, and hardy geraniums are currently brightening the perennial borders, the weigelas and mock oranges are getting ready for their heavenly show, and the peonies are just “golf ball size and showing color”, just the way they like them in the flower market, so next week should be a triumph in the peony ribbon.



Of course, as with all things achieved in concert with Mother Nature, every moment of glory will be balanced with a bit of loss or defeat, and this spring is no exception, as we have seen the demise of two of our most true blue perennial stars: the magnificent 75 year old Japanese maple that graced our front lawn, and the ‘Red Delicious’ apple espalier that has decorated the façade of our upper barn for the past twenty plus years. Their time, simply, was up. The maple has been visibly weakening for several years now, it’s formerly lush, burgundy intensity growing more fragile and airy with each new season, and this spring only about a quarter of it leafed out at all. So yesterday, down the great lady came. I saved some of her prettiest branches to keep in a tall vase in the living room for a bit. Luckily she managed to fling off a few offspring before she met her maker, and we have a number of her progeny following in her footsteps on the terrace and down by the stream walk. We have decided not to replace her as the now open vista down to the creek (where those alliums are so perky right now) is a nice change. The apple followed much the same path: a visible weakening over the last few seasons, the entire right side going feet up two years ago, and the middle section giving up the ghost last summer. We’re going to plant a new one this season and trust we’ll be around long enough to see it achieve the roofline of the barn.



In the vegetable gardens, the beds are amended and tilled, and the cool weather crops (brassicas, lettuce, radishes, carrots) are in. Additionally, our bamboo structures for the beans and tomatoes are built in the beds behind the chicken house this year, and they are looking very handsome indeed, although it’s still a bit early for those heat lovers to go into the ground. The triumph of the bamboo structure, naturally, has been balanced by Mother Nature with a galloping case of bursitis in my left shoulder from the overly zealous jamming of canes into the ground and too much working overhead. Humbly, I have learned my lesson: a few aches and pains are surely part of the gardening life and are, generally, ignored, but sometimes it is wisest to listen to your body when it urges you to stop what you are doing. So, as it is the same shoulder that powers my computer mouse, I believe, that is what I will do for now. Welcome to spring and I will see you next month!

At this point in the garden season, there is always that tug between the impulse to neaten up and the knowledge that dead plant matter left to rot over the winter will provide loads of beneficial nutrients to the soil when forked under in spring. This is all a balance and I have learned that, on a purely visual basis, there are some things I can stand to leave and others that simply must go, however horticulturally beneficent they might be if left to their own devices.



As we all know, it pays to allow most plants to die back to at least that forlornly limp and yellowish stage as this allows the plants to absorb sunlight and strength for next year. This is particularly important to bulbs, like daffodils and narcissus and the like, but also to most perennials. That said, I finally hacked down what was left of the peonies in the white border, as I was sick to death of looking at their blackened remains. Likewise the stalks of the spent shasta daisies, although their leaf clumps still look remarkably fresh, and the big, naked canes of the hearty hibiscus out by the pool.

This neatening impulse also took itself off to the cutting garden, where I pulled out the all dead zinnias, lopped off the tops of the very forlorn looking dahlias, and dug up the tubers to be stored over the winter. For those of you who are dahlia lovers and wish to do the same, the tubers are best stored in a crate of slightly moistened peat moss or wood shavings at a temperature between 40 and 50 degrees. Do check them, however, a couple of times throughout the winter to make sure they’re not rotting or shriveling.



In the vegetable gardens, I denuded the big bamboo structures of their limp bean, squash, and tomato vines, and raked up the remains of the nasturtiums, bush beans, and whatever else had succumbed to frost, leaving the die-hards to provide some becoming human fodder for a few more months. In fact, last night, I had a nice garlicky sauté of kale, chard, and arugula along with some mashed celery root to accompany a grilled steak. Also still thriving are leeks, cabbages, broccoli, the winter squash, which has been harvested and stored, and a good number of the herbs, including mint, parsley, and sage. There are still plenty of good meals to be had from the garden, even as December approaches.



I’m going to dedicate the last portion of this column to the subject of mulch and mulching in general, as this is the time of year when we should all be giving this subject some due consideration. First of all, let’s consider that blanket of fallen leaves that is currently covering most of our lawns. To many, this is a nagging chore involving aching backs and shoulders and mounds of useless debris perpetuated on unsuspecting man by an unfeeling Mother Nature. To others, however, this is certifiable brown gold, as valuable to the gardener as a bucket of earthworms or beneficial nematodes.

For if you rake your leaves into a pile and, even better, one encircled by a perimeter of stout wire fencing so that you can really pack them in, then leave them to degrade for two or three years, you will have achieved the wonder of humus, which is nature’s gift to your soil. As well, if you amend this pile occasionally with animal manures, kitchen waste, grass clippings: whatever presents itself in your household or on your land, and fork it thought every once and a while with a pitchfork, you will be adding veritable gems to your gold. The best scenario, if you have the room, is to have three or four of these piles going, in close proximity, so that you always have one sufficiently “aged” to employ immediately, and so that you can amend the others easily as you’re whipping your way by with your cart.



I'm going to retire this blog for the season here, as I'm sure all gardeners are looking forward to a little down time as winter descends, and I look forward to catching up with you again come spring. A magical holiday and triumphant New Year to you all.

If you’re at all like us, you’re about ready to throw up your hands and turn your voices to the sky in extravagant exhortation to the god of rain in the hopes that he will take pity on us and let loose a precious drop or three of that life-sustaining but sadly lacking liquid. I personally am envisioning a blissful, blustery fortnight of a lovely, steady, drenching soak right down to the very tips of the roots of our most substantial trees. Right now, as I look out on the borders and gardens, it seems like what hasn’t bolted has grown to some monstrous, straggly proportion and is littered with spent blossoms and forlorn-looking leaves. One is sorely tempted at this point in a season like this to say the hell with it and let nature take its unpretty course. This, of course, would be exceedingly foolish and it pays for all of us at moments like this to remember who we are, hike up our Wellies, and climb right back onto that currently uncooperative horticultural horse. We are not quitters and we will have the last word. Therefore: what?

Well, the first thing to do is to get back down off that horse, trundle off to the garden shed, drag out your hoses and sprinklers and give some sustenance to the worst victims. Forget the lawn: let it go the gold of prairie grass: it’ll come back as it gets wetter. Instead, give your attentions to any tree that shows signs of stress or drooping or yellowing leaves. Drag the hose over to its roots and just let it run full tilt for a good half hour, keeping in mind that the water’s going to have to permeate a good four or five feet of soil to do any good at all. Secondly, give your attentions to any groupings of shrubs or established perennials that are looking the least bit forlorn. Again, anything with an established root system is going to be overlooked entirely by any superficial watering such as that supplied by your typical lawn sprinkler, which probably only permeates to about six inches an hour, so take the time to stand there, hose in hand, and give each root system its due.

The next thing to do is to get out a good pair of clippers, some garden twine and a bundle of bamboo stakes, throw them into your wheelbarrow, and start doing some aesthetic damage control, particularly in areas like your perennial beds and the vegetable garden if you have one.
In the vegetable garden, if it’s bolted or spent (lettuce… dill… broccoli… corn… cilantro…), yank it out and re-seed with a fall crop of cold-hearty cultivars. Remember to keep these newly seeded patches moist as tender seedlings will fry in a second : a watering every day will be necessary until they’ve got a couple of sets of true leaves on them. If it’s grown into an unkempt, disheveled thicket (mint… lemon balm… New Zealand spinach… sorrel…), hack it back to within its originally prescribed bounds. Also, stake up tall specimens like pepper plants, eggplants, and Brussels sprouts to keep them from prostrating themselves too abjectly. You’ll be amazed how a couple of hours of work in this regard can turn an overgrown eyesore into something that at least has a nodding acquaintance with neat and orderly.


In the borders, follow the same game plan. Deadhead and cutback anything that’s over. Right now, that’s been meaning the big stands of shasta daisy, hollyhocks, stachys, and a good deal of the phlox. Use your aesthetic judgement on what’s left. If it’s sprawling, stake it up. It it’s too out of control to stake, reshape the stand, cutting back the most unruly culprits, then stake it. This has been particularly effective for those alarmingly tall stands at the back of the borders of things like Joe Pye weed (eupatorium maculatum) and purple loosestrife (lythrum salicaria).

At the front of the border, trim up anything that’s grown leggy and is over-spilling the path. In our case, this group includes cosmos, baby’s breath (gypsophila elegans), some hearty geranium, artemesia, and, of course, the lamb’s ears (stachys byzantina). Think of all this as a form of housekeeping: like cleaning up after an overly (or perhaps just sufficiently) festive party. Once you’ve shoveled through the detris, tossed out the garbage, put the plates and glasses away, and straightened up the sofa cushions, you find your living space has been miraculously restored to you, even if, in truth, the whole room could do with a fresh paint job.

So it goes with the September garden. In then end, just try to concentrate on what’s looking lush and lovely despite the heat and the drought, like our hydrangeas for instance. Or the big, sunshiny stands of heliopsis and helianthus at the top of the summer borders. Or the fall-blooming, sweet clematis paniculata montana that’s showcasing it’s frilly snowflakes on the vegetable garden arbor. And keep in mind that there’s still plenty more enjoyment to be gotten from your gardens straight through till frost.

For the past several weeks we have been fluffing beds and borders like there was not only no tomorrow but perhaps not even this afternoon, as this month is always a moment in the garden when some housekeeping is clearly of the essence. Our largest effort went into the perennial borders, where the first job to be done was some copious deadheading and cutting back of the spring and early summer blooming perennials. Among these were the early astilbes and shasta daisies, the wonderful shrub rose “The Fairy”, the lamb’s ears (stachys byzantina), baptisias, astrantias, and mountain bluets (centaurea montana), and the lady’s mantle (alchemilla mollis). The there was the corralling and shoring up of some the larger, late bloomers, like the lythrum and lysimachia and later shastas, which have the tendency to flop and sprawl come August. All this housekeeping accomplishes two things: certainly a far more orderly garden, but one, as well, that has revealed some clear pockets of want, to wit: blank soil where a stand of something once stood or lounged.

The answer? Popping in. “Popping in” is a twofold idea. First, it entails “popping in” to your local perennial supplier and loosening up your wallet a tad. Then it entails “popping in” what you have just purchased into the spots in your garden that are currently displaying a paucity of bloom and foliage. This is really an extremely enjoyable activity on a number of fronts. For one thing, it’s an excellent time to be shopping for plants not only because prices are excellent as growers look to unload a bit of their stock as fall approaches, but, also, because the gratification is absolutely instant. Unlike spring buying when you’re purchasing a fluff of green in a pot that might aspire to something tall and colorful in the future but is making only a nascent showing at the moment, August perennial shopping allows you to see exactly what you’re buying in all its glory, and have it give your garden an immediate boost.

We make it a point to always “pop in” in increments of three or five plants: one or two is never enough to make a good showing and it seems to me that an odd number will always give you the right “cloudy”, slightly freeform planting effect for which we gardeners strive. We’ll start, then, with the mid-border. There we added some of the prettiest of the blue delphiniums, in mixed clusters of five, specifically the deep purple-y blue “King Arthur”, the lovely, clear, medium blue “Blue Bride”, and the paler, very aptly named “Summer Skies”. In between, with, again, artful randomness, we added stands of white, highly fragrant Casablanca lilies, some of echinacea purpurea “Magnus”, the handsome, pinky-purple cone flower with the yellow eye, and a few of the really stunning phlox “Norah Leigh” with its variegated foliage and pale pink blossom with darker eye.

Of slightly more compact but no less winsome demeanor was the addition of two or three clusters each of physostegia virginiana “Crown Rose” with its pale pink spikes, the veronica “Sunny Border Blue”, which is spiked with blossoms of a true, deep blue, and the achillea ptarmica “The Pearl”, a very pretty white yarrow with tiny, almost daisy-like flowers. At the front of the border, for some nice, low jolts of authentic silver, we added some clusters of the artemesia “Silver Mound” and cerastium tomentosum, the poetically named “Snow In Summer”. For spectacular deep purple foliage, we added two varieties of heuchera, the beautifully veined “Cathedral Windows” and the new, strikingly ruffled “Stormy Seas”, which adds just a hint of green underbelly to the leaf. For further visual upholstery at the edges of the borders, we also added a couple of drifts each of the pink flowering baby’s breath, gypsophyla paniculata “Festival Pink”, and the lavender-hued pincushion flower, scabiosa columbaria “Butterfly Blue”. All in all, it added up to a veritable “border makeover”: from frowzy to fabulous in just a few days.

Last month I was extolling the visual virtues of our perennial borders: a winsome lane of quiet charms, soft pastels, and unflagging longevity of bloom, rather like a true and steadfast if somewhat unassuming wife. This month, however, I have entirely thrown over that shy and serene companion of the long hot summer for the spectacularly showy if shorter-lived charms of our summer borders, which are just starting their truly riotous display.

This is no retiring, dim-hued beauty. Oh, no. This is a garden that not only sashays right up with a great swiveling of hips and says “Hi, Sailor” but gives you a quick pinch for emphasis. Think Carmen Miranda with her tallest of banana hats, parading her festive wares with not an iota of subterfuge or disinclination. Think scarlet and cadmium yellow, fluorescent orange and fuchsia, and purple foliage as rich as royal blood. This garden’s heyday is from mid to late summer and, right now, it is a fiesta of very gregarious, even outrageous color.

There are many stars to applaud here but, as we have learned over the years, blossom may be enchanting but foliage is forever, so I will start with the big anchors: the shrubs and trees. At the back of these borders, we’ve planted six tall weeping, fastigiate copper beeches (fagus purpureo-pendula), three on each side of the central path. The foliage is black purple and a marvelous backdrop for greens and yellows, and their twisty, weepy forms are magnificent against the horizon. We’ve also added, mid-slope, substantial, ribbon-y drifts of berberis thunbergii aurea and atropurpurea, the yellow and purple Japanese barberry, the purple echoing the deep burgundy of the beeches, the yellow providing a dramatic, white-hot counterpoint.

Additionally, in the center of each half of the borders, we’ve planted a huge aesculus parviflora (bottlebrush buckeye), a member of the horse chestnut family, each about 10 feet broad, which are currently extending their magnificent, vanilla-colored panicles skyward. On the right side, where the half of the border is broader and meets up with an adjoining slope, we’ve planted a couple of impressive stands of purple smokebush (cotinus coggygria purpureus). For those unfamiliar with this large-growing tree-shrub (to as much as 15 feet), it is a rare, visual treat. It’s foliage matches the deep hues of the red barberry and the copper beech, but it is it’s astonishing clouds of pink/gray blossom – literally clouds like puffs of smoke, as airy as baby’s breath -- that are it’s unique attraction.


Perennially, up under and around the weeping copper beech, we’ve planted big stands of plume poppy (macleaya cordata), growing to about 7 feet, with its lovely, glaucous, brassica-like blue foliage and magnificent plumes providing very nice contrast. Also at the top of the borders, large stands of helianthus petiolaris (prairie sunflower) and heliopsis helianthoides (sunflower heliopsis), two tall-growing varieties of perennial sunflower, providing lots of yellow sparkle to joust with the surrounding hues of burgundy and blue. As well, a grouping of yucca filamentosa (Adam’s needle) with their marvelous, succulent, lance-shaped foliage and towering stalks of bell-like white blossoms. All together, a very nice show for these tall cultivars.

Farther down the slope, about on a level with the barberries, are substantial stands of red hot poker (kniphofia uvaria), which I would certainly rate as the top bananas in this particular Carmen Miranda’s hat. Also in this mid-range, some rudbeckia Goldstrum and triloba (Brown-eyed Susan), both members of the coneflower family, and achillea filipendulina “Coronation Gold”, providing some surprising yellow accents themselves.

And finally, filling in at the bottom of the borders, just inside the edging of coreopsis “Zagreb”, are three varieties of day lily (hemerocallis “Rozavel”, “American Dream“, and “Frances Fay”) in shades of deep, yellow-throated crimson, clear lemon yellow, and salmon, and a bit stand of flaming red crocosmia. These are all brought into sharper focus by a few, interplanted stands of the yellow-eyed, pure white faces of shasta daisy (chrysanthemum superbum). This is another lesson we have learned overtime: always add a dash of white to any border for it invariably enlivens every color that surrounds it. Not that that the colors in this particular border need much enlivening… See you in August!

This is the month when all of our perennial plantings really start to strut their stuff. I am lucky enough to write in a converted space in one of our big, former dairy barns, overlooking the entrance to our perennial borders. The borders I refer to are two broad beds flanking a grass lane leading out to the visual destination of a fountain and pool, which are plopped down in a circular lawn which had been a cow pasture in a former life. The borders, anchored with substantial box and yews and flowering fruit trees, are planted in a soft, hazy, pastel palette of blues, pinks, and whites, accented with the occasional jolt of silver/gray foliage (artemesias powis castle, silver king, and silver queen... stachys byzantina (lamb’s ears)...) or purple-leaved plants (heuchera “palace purple”, for instance). Right now, they are singing the blues, though luckily without even a hint of heartbreak or hand-wringing. More of a clear, sky blue or the blue of a child’s eyes: pure and wondrous.



Some of the early stars in these borders are the tall, true blue spires of baptisia australis, the wild blue indigo, with its lovely blue-green, pea-like foliage, and big stands of mountain bluet (centaurea montana), the perennial form of bachelor’s button, with that wonderful thistle-y, deep blue flower. Another blue girl not to ignore is veronica incania (wooly speedwell) with its white, wooly stems and 6’ spikes of an enchanting porcelain blue. Also, the native columbines (aquilegia canadensis), members of the Buttercup family, with their dainty blue, white or purple spurred blossoms borne high on upright spikes, and the lavender-violet clouds and tall, airy foliage of thalictrum rochebrunianum (lavender mist), a native of Japan and a real star for the back of the border.



The front of the border is currently being brightened by cerastium tomentosum (snow-in-summer) with its gray foliage and pretty, spreading carpet of dianthus-like white blossoms, and several varieties of hearty geranium and cranesbill, with their attractive, deeply-cut leaf clumps and pink-to-white blossoms. All of this is punctuated with the occasional exclamation point of a grouping of giant white allium Mount Everest. Very nice indeed from my office window.