The Garden Buzz

Troubled by This Garden? Please Leave a Note.

I've been wandering the streets again. All the while trying to maintain that "what you lookin' at?" glare/vacant stare encouraged for all social discourse and navigation on the mean streets of NYC.

I'm on the prowl for gardens.

While my daughter heads to Martha's in Manhattan everyday (she's doing the Everday Food Blog among other things), I am hanging out at her place for the next few days; a petite but charming fraction of a brownstone on the "Slope" near Prospect Park, in Brooklyn where all the cool kids live. 

I've found that gardening is alive and well in NYC. Considering the logistics and space limitations, I'm in awe of the horticultural efforts I see.

In this part of Brooklyn along the rows of sturdy brownstones are stately courtyards with impressive urns filled with conifers, elephant ears or coleus. There are windowboxes trailing lovely flowers. Mums and pumpkins anticipate and celebrate autumn on the iconic stoops. All working within the rowhouse framework, all perfectly groomed and lovely.

And then I find it. A garden that makes me drop the scowl and just smile. And yet, it may not be to everyone's taste.

Notable and noble for the sheer quantity of vegetation as well as the design and arrangement, this garden knits gnarled vines with stairstepped pots and "found" wood to create a seamless vista across the lower facade. The container plants flow down the steps into one another. The effect is like a densely planted hillside or perhaps a fisherman's cottage in Maine.

To the side of the steps an ordinary flower bed is transformed with an unusual structure. I love this teetering thing that resembles an osprey nest or an eagle aerie. The higgledy-piggledy platform holds up a few potted plants and sticks that seem to float over the plants below.

But the best part is that small laminated sign peeking out from the honeysuckle...

 

"If you are troubled by this garden, please leave a note."

"If you must wield scissors"

"Consider your cuticles or other body parts" 

 

 

 

 

The High Line Revisited; No Head Injuries This Time

So, almost a year ago to the day, I veered off the path of a corporate spouses outing to see The High Line in NYC. Designed by famed Dutch landscape artist Piet Oudolf, the High Line is urban/public gardening at its best, taking an abandoned elevated railway and turning it into a shining example of repurposing, native plantings and social promenade.

If you read last year's account, you know that no sooner had I stepped onto the first landing, than I had tripped and fell flat on my my back hitting my head. This visit has gone much better.

I'm back here in NYC helping my daughter settle in as she undertakes a fall internship at Martha Stewart Living Ominimedia, specifically working for their Everyday Food publication. Until she moves into her place in Brooklyn, we are staying in Chelsea just a literal stone's throw from The High Line.

It's interesting that there now stands in the crevice where I caught my foot, a statue of a man about 18 inches tall. I wonder if he has been placed there to alert people to the hazard? If only he had been there last year, I would have been saved the two subsequent MRIs and numerous strange symptoms that could be related to the fall. Oh well.

Here's a quick tour of what I've found so far. 

Autumn shows off Oudlf's beloved grasses at their best

Lots of seedheads for the birds that flit amongst the plantings

Wild roses bloom everywhere

A leafy path through they city

The plantings supply a counterpoint to the many murals and ads on surrounding buildings

Abundant rose hips on Rosa glauca

The play of shadows adds another design element

A very cool and cooling water feature

Wildlife habitat amid the skyscrapers, lots of bees even in the chilly weather

End of the line at the southern tip

Waves of grasses set into the tapers

And the tiny man guarding the deceivingly dangerous crevice at the river overlook.

WATCH YOUR STEP!!!

Garden Bloggers Bloom Day: November 15

No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees,

No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds – November!”

 

I return to photograph these birches time and time again. They are at the edge of a development that stalled when the economy tanked.

I could photograph them every day and never make the same image. The light, the leaves, the undergrowth is always changing. In fall, they're not flashy like crimson maples, but more subtle with goldenrod and grasses at their feet. In winter they are a beautiful study in black and white, all the more striking in the absence of color. 

This builder has included lots of environmentally friendly aspects in his plan. And I know that due to their position they won't be cut down. Once again, building has resumed and it's a matter of time before the lot in front of them displays those telltale orange-tipped stakes that mark the site of a new home.

When that happens, the birches will belong to new people, only visible to them. I hope they love them as much as I do.

 

Fall Floral Arrangement: Better Late Than Never Bouquet

Last year's quick blog on my "autumn equinox bouquet" consistently ranked as one of the popular posts of 2010. ( Click on the link to read the back story). This year I wasn't home for most of September and spent most of October catching up with my shadow. So here in November, the month of no, as in no more garden, I managed to eke out a "Better Late Than Never Bouquet".

These remaining days of cool autumn sun afforded me a pleasant trip around the garden gathering bits of foliage, pods, seed heads and such, enough to cobble together a decent ode to fall.

More somber in color than my traditional end of the season arrangements, I kinda like the deep purple tones and feathery shapes. it didn't photograph as well as last year's, but believe me is just as beautiful.

 Fall Floral Arrangement                                                      The Garden Buzz

For some of you it may be too late to assemble a similar bouquet, but for many of you, the makings are just now taking on that mellow mood of autumn.

This year's ingredients:

• Siberian Kale leaves
• Chokeberry branches
• Sedum "Autumn Joy" flowers
• Hydrangea "Annabelle" dried blossoms
• Rudbeckia "Goldsturm" seed heads
• Baptisia seed pods
• Elderberry stems minus the berries (cool purple spidery shapes)
• Daphne foliage
• Pine sprigs
• Oregano stems
• Feather Reed Grass "Karl Foerster" grass

I was tempted to include fennel seed clusters, the licorice-scent was wafting through the air as I clipped branches, but I try to avoid seed pods that will shatter and make a mess. Instead Greek oregano gave this a distinct spicy scent. What a nice sight every time I come in the back door.

Imagine what you can find in your own garden!

 

Tidy Up or Let It Be: Where Do You Fall on Fall Garden Cleanup?

No matter where you fall on the issue of fall garden cleanup, you have to appreciate a recent tweet by Benjamin Vogt. He's a poet, gardener and author of Sleep, Creep, Leap, which recounts his adventures in prairie gardening.

"Just prepped my garden for winter by glancing out the office window and sighing. Seriously, why do people do fall clean-up? Nature doesn't."

I guess I fall somewhere close to this 140-characters or less, garden-maintenance manifesto. I don't do much. But I do a little.

I would venture that fall clean up routines are dependent upon gardening styles, weather and peer pressure. The more naturalistic setting can get away with less. While manicured and groomed gardens, like women of the same sort, demand more intense seasonal intervention.

Of course, those of us up north know that good snow cover hides a multitude of sins.

Raking leaves in the crisp autumn air is as much psychological marker as seasonal chore. In neighborhoods where pride of place is present, it's just what you do. I've been known to simply rearrange the leaves to cover the beds for what's known as "lazy (wo)man's mulch". However leaves can get matted and deprive soil of moisture and they create unhealthy conditions when left on lawns.

It's probably most important to remove leaves and other dead material from plants and trees suffering from any fungal issues. Disposing of that debris will help to stop the cycle of reinfection from year to year. Keep it out of your compost too.

Leaving some debris provides beneficial insects and other animals overwintering sites. However it gives all insects, some undesirable, a place too. There is never an easy answer.

Pulling up spent annuals even presents a dilemna. While some people welcome re-seeding plants, others will regret the thousands of descendants that pop up the following year. I compromise and deadhead the ones that are the most notorious propagators like fennel, nicotiana, jewels of Opar, and even then there will still be quite a few survivors. 

I choose to leave perennials up over the winter unless they are already flopping before the first snow. I hate the cutting back in spring but find it a fair trade for feeding birds and critters. In addition to lovely seed heads like these...

Joe Pye Weed (Eupatorium purpureum) provides statuesque beauty and food for the birds.

Culver's Root (Veronicastrum virginicum) seed heads cut an interesting silhouette in the garden.

Yesterday at the post office I came upon the prefect illustration of the fall cleanup quandary.

Witness the carnage!

Across the street the parks crew were cutting down the Annabelle hydrangeas that flank the entry to a local park. I spoke with the head guy and he told me he would like to leave them up but just doesn't have the staff hours to deal with them come spring. 

I leave all my Annabelles standing over winter. The chore of trimming them back is still waiting for me when the snow melts, but worth it for this sight.

 

Dried panicles of Hydrangea arborescens "Annabelle", note the lovely leaf pattern too.

And that's probably where the fall cleanup question splits; do we do it in fall so we can settle down into winter guilt free or do we leave it till spring when we are ready to get out and tackle anything, just to be outside.

 

 

Happy Halloween!

Ghosts in the garden! Happy Halloween!

Garden Bloggers Bloom Day: October 15, 2011

This Bloom Day caught me by surprise! It's a chilly, breezy autumn day in Minnesota, feeling normal after a year of unseasonal, atypical (but, hey, what's typical anymore?) weather.

A quick and cold tour of the garden finds dribs and drabs of color and hangers-on sputtering out a final attempt at carrying on the species. 

Time to put our kayaks away. Long shadows and golden light.      The Garden Buzz

Pee Gee Hydrangeas take on that antique shade of rose               The Garden Buzz

Shasta Daisy "Becky" flutters in the breeze

The rugosas have recuperated from Japanese Beetle damage

A lone delphinium defies the windy weather                   The Garden Buzz

Last of the dahlias                        The Garden Buzz

Hydrangea "Incrediball" aging into vintage green

This snapdragon looks unfazed by anything

Backlit seedheads of Joe-Pye Weed shining bright

A sleepy bee clings to the last of the zinnias                               The Garden Buzz

Winterberry "Red Sprite" hints of holiday things to come               The Garden Buzz

Always a melancholy mood in the garden this time of year. 

Thanks to Carol at May Dreams Gardens for the one and only original Garden Bloggers Bloom Day!

Bob Saget? No, Bog Sage, Really.

Still wit gathering, but you can get a bit of the 'Buzz' over at Herb Companion magazine. I've just added this beautiful herb with the unfortunate name to my herbal wish list. Click and read all about it.

Coffee No, Cappuccino Yes, Rudbeckia That Is

I'm not at all about coffee, no matter how macchiato, but I'm all over this new perennial, Rudbeckia "Cappuccino". 

Rudbeckia "Cappuccino"                                                  The Garden Buzz

Every year Renee's Seeds offers a selection of free seeds to garden writers, it's a generous gesture with no strings attached. They do hope if we find something that wows us, we will write about it. Well here goes...

I planned to get back into seed starting in a big way this year. Going back to my roots you might say. As life has gotten busier and more complicated, I've turned to nursery-grown plants more and more. Yet I missed the thrill of coaxing tiny seeds into beautiful flowers and vegetables.

I asked my husband to construct a simpler version of my old seed starting set-up. He put together an inexpensive metal shelf with flourescent lights and voila, I was back in business.

Of course, I tried to restrain myself but as always my eyes were bigger than the time and space I had in the garden. This is nothing new to gardeners growing from seed. Furthermore I had to leave town several times and ask my son to water the seedlings. Although he watched over them faithfully some suffered from overcrowding, but this Rudbeckia was unfazed. 

In the meantime, the place I had planned to plant "Cappuccino", a new berm, wasn't finished yet, so as they grew bigger, stockier and full of buds, I put them in temporary holding pots that received sporadic care while other life-y things happened. 

With more traveling to do, I decided not to do any fall containers. But a trip to the nursery for shrubs found me wandering into the discounted tropical plant area, you know, those 75% off, sad-plant, orphanage-like, no man's land populated with crispy bougainvilleas and yellowing ficus trees (I bought one and now it's thriving).

Looking perfectly healthy and happy, some Heavenly Bamboo with alternately blue-gree and apricot foliage beckoned to me, and I could swear I heard them saying, wouldn't we look great with those rudbeckias and that millet you bought too many of too?

Cappuccino with friends                    The Garden Buzz

I had never bonded with my large summer entry containers, so I was easily swayed. Keeping the helichrysum and huecheras, then adding the bamboo, millet and rudbeckias, gave me a late summer to autumn transition that makes me smile each time I pull in the driveway now. And eventually they will get planted in the new berm.

The point of all this:

Rudbeckia "Cappuccino" is a gorgeous large-flowered rudebckia that comes in a mix of lovely russet, gold and mahogany with a chocolate brown center. The compact plants are dominated by the prolific blooms. It is drought tolerant, and in my yard, even neglect-tolerant, holding up to wind and less than regular watering. Butterflies love it. Best of all, they are in the easy category for seed starting, and that isn't always the case with perennials.

A much better value than Starbucks and calorie-free to boot.

Winter Hardiness: The Benefits of Procrastination in the Garden

During last summer's garden tour, when I was asked what I was going to do with the two large, potted Japanese Maples once winter arrived, I didn't reply, "Oh, I'll have the best intentions of bringing them inside the garage until next spring, but then I'll get busy and leave them out the entire winter, subjecting them to sub-zero temperatures and a heavy snow load as well".

But that's exactly what I did. 

Flash back to last spring and panicked planning for the garden tour. I couldn't find the huge, black foliage/deep orange dahlias that anchored my entry container plantings the year before. I wandered around the garden center, of course the one that's a really long drive, searching for something with height, dark foliage and character. Without a big price tag.

Behind the bedding displays, half-hidden, I found a little group of deep red Japanese Maples, that seemed forgotten and out of place. Perfect. Not cheap. So I told myself I'd be good and bring them in for winter. After all, using Japanese Maples as annuals is beyond extravagant, even with a garden tour pending. I grabbed two of them and changed my whole color scheme to suit them.

They made a lovely little screen of pretty and graceful foliage, complementing the wine and lime shades of the plants beneath them. As fall approached, I made mental notes to drag them inside. I even considered planting one in a very sheltered microclimate outside in the ground and bringing only one inside just to see what would happen. In the interest of science, of course.

By then I'd re-planted the Jap Maple containers with fall edibles; the herbs, chard, kale and pumpkins looking so great against that dark red foliage that had deepened with the cooler temps. Instead of removing them from the entryway, they had once again become the stars.

But somewhere between Thanksgiving, out-of-state winter graduation and Christmas, I didn't get around to doing what the conscientious gardener would do. As snowfall piled on top of snowfall, the pots disappeared into the white blobby landscape with only the bare, skeletal branches of the Jap Maples remaining to remind me on a daily basis what a slacker I am.

During the January thaw that happened in February, I ventured out and peeked at what was peeking out of the melting snow. The maples were exposed and sad standing above the mushy remnants of my potted potager. 

Funny thing though, I thought I noticed what looked like buds. There along with the few leftover leaves fossilized in ice crystals, were tiny buds poking out at each juncture. The branches were pliable!

Hard to believe but those Japanese Maples are still alive after sitting out in temperatures that reached 15-30 below with wind chill, in containers no less. I have to believe that snow cover truly is a magical mulch.

I pawed through my box of plant labels to find the name of this polar bear of a plant. Emperor I, Acer palmatum, Wolff, an exclusive from Monrovia, hardy to zone 5. Remember I live in Minnesota. I'm impressed.

Now I can't wait for them to leaf out. Imagine them underplanted with chartreuse shades of lettuce.

I don't recommend procrastination as a garden method. It seems though, they had a better chance of survival when you think the alternative was a long winter in the garage, with the ever present threat of my son leaving the door open by accident. As he's been known to do.

Recently the Master Gardener discussion board was buzzing about big box store-bought potted mums tossed in the compost pile, only to come back and bloom the next season. Some plants have a lot of will to live.

Is there something in your garden that surprised you with its determination to thrive?