The Garden's Edge

Thursday, October 20, 2016

Curves

Who could be upset by a flower bed with a straight edge?

A long bed that was in the back yard when I bought my house had a straight edge, bordered in vertically placed granite stepping stones.

When I needed more space for a few small plants I built a square extension on it, about 2' x 2'. This was greeted with horror by my wife who pointed out that the edges of beds had to be curves. OK, I bent to some more digging, as directed. And beds I built later were curved to avoid further unpleasantness.

Formal gardens from the 18^th and 19^th centuries in the US and Britain seem to have an abundance of Euclidean Geometry: lots of straight lines and circles. Views through rectangular gates with semi-circular tops. Round fountains surrounded by round flower beds, surrounded by grass, all bordered by rectangular beds.

The antithesis of formality is “naturalism”. A naturalistic garden climbs upward with almost no human geometry visible and it looks like nature “could” have made the garden that way, if it felt like making it attractive to humans. Of course, an attractive naturalistic garden takes as much planning as a formal one, but the design seems casual and almost accidental. I think of a formal garden with its boxwoods sheared into gumball shapes, a naturalistic garden almost unpruned but planted in interesting combinations and a professional landscaper's garden with lots of hardscape patios and paths.

So, starting in 1995 with an almost-clean slate, what did I decide to do? I wanted the high-shade of the large oaks to dictate the plantings, so azaleas and hostas were the first thoughts (and 20 years later they still are a backbone). But which of the two themes should I follow (assuming that I would want the front, side and back yards to all follow the same plan)? I had enjoyed birding for many years, hiking through the wilds and my choice was easy.

Strangely, there were still some ambiguities. I liked bordering some of the beds with granite stones. I think that they help maintain the moisture during the hot droughts which are our annual punishment. And granite looks natural. Except when it doesn't. The smooth curve of a “natural” looking bed, bordered smoothly with smooth granite stepping stones of similar size starts to look a little … umm … smooth. Formal?

Part of the problem is that I, and maybe others, don't really have a plan when we start out. At the beginning we haven't read much or seen many gardens so the idea of a plan hasn't occurred. If I had a plan then it was to have a lot of large bushes completely covered in flowers (OK, over 20 years later that's STILL my plan, but maybe with some nuances …).

After a couple of years of gardening we have read some articles (maybe books), visited gardener's gardens (as opposed to neighbor's gardens) and thought about what was possible with our combination of size, shade, soil and the view beyond. (View? Whenever I take a picture of my backyard I have to aim the camera so it doesn't encompass the toxic waste dump on one side or the oil refinery on the other.)

So, after seeing some gardens that make you want to create a copy, there's a powerful urge to create a formal or naturalistic garden. Would you consider a hybrid? How about formal around the house and driveway and naturalistic around the edges. Could you have edges that don't look messy when both sections are viewed? Would that be a grating juxtaposition or nice contrast?

What would make you want to drift away from the house and check out the farther reaches of the yard? Some bright colors or unusual shapes can be inviting. And some companion plants for variety? Hostas, heucheras, hellebores, hydrangeas? And maybe some plants that DON'T begin with an 'H'? All just around the curve in the path …

Tuesday, September 20, 2016

Landscaping

If you're reading this then you've done at least a little landscaping.

You've decided to put that plant there and the other one over there. Someone else might not do it that way. Your garden isn't exactly your image of the garden of your dreams, but it's a step in that direction and next year it will look even better than this year.

If you have the money, would you consider calling in a professional landscaper and have them do it all for you? If the point of a yard is to look good for parties and avoid HOA complaints then that's a good solution.

Do you enjoy playing the piano? You could hire the local piano teacher to come play for you, instead. Do you like knitting? You could pay the knitting shop owner to knit for you and then you wouldn't have to. But that misses the point.

If ever there was a perfect example of the old line about how happiness is the journey and not the destination then gardening is it. I once read that a garden is never finished. There are new azaleas to enjoy from our local hybridizers, ferns to move that got too big for their surroundings, great experiments to dig out that failed to perform as the catalogs advertised and new collections of colors to enlarge the pallet. It's never finished (unlike the landscaper who, at some predetermined point, IS finished).

We're gardening because we WANT to garden. The process of enjoying gardening is the goal and even tiny gardens with limited budgets provide that.

We come home from work after dark and don't have the time or energy to get out into the yard (though I do have a friend who digs holes and mixes dirt under spotlights). The items on our checklist become more numerous. That's why our gardens don't resemble the National Arboretum. And Barbara Bullock of the NA would quickly tell you that they, too, could use more help, funding and time.

What does MY yard look like? Wave your arms to brush away the cloud of mosquitoes and take a look: over there are all the plants in pots yet to be crowded into a bed (some with roots escaping through the drain holes and becoming feral). Just behind that is a huge mulch pile which, after 5 years, will become the world's best compost. Empty pots are lying over by the fence because the shed needs space for tools.

I once heard the line “If you're not killing plants then you're not trying!” We don't know if the new plant we just bought will survive and thrive in the micro-climate by the fence, and if not then maybe it would if we put it over in the shade by that tree. It's fun to try and REALLY fun when it succeeds!

Beyond the idea of dropping a nice plant in the ground, there's the question of beds. Should they have straight sides or curves? Should there be a lot of small ones or a few large ones? A mixture? Raised or on the level with the surface? Bordered by stones, railroad ties or just overflowing with mulch? Or even a rock garden with slivers of soil between the stones of the pile, the dirt almost apologetic for being there?

And what's in the beds? A variety of genus' or all one species? Plants from the same hybridizer or multiple people? The same flower color? The same bloom time? The same funny names (the “Striptease” series if you're into hosta, the “Confederate” series if deciduous azaleas are your thing)?

My beds have a variety of themes: azaleas in a bed all bloom at the same time, herbaceous beds are a mixture of textures, heights and colors. Bulb beds are of a type: crocus, daffodil or daylily, which also all bloom at the same time. I give myself good reasons for my choices but I'm not sure that those reasons would survive intense scrutiny.

People like to construct things. Some will build boats or planes in their basements, knowing that the finished product will be trapped forever. It's fun building them, anyway. Some knit large projects, some draw complex pictures, some write garden essays (the least defensible craft...).

Building a garden is so satisfying that language is inadequate to describe the feeling. And yet we're trapped communicating in that poor medium. Maybe someday when we all have computer jacks in our heads the feeling WILL be transferable. Until then, we'll just have to do it to feel it.

Pay a landscaper to do it for me? I'll be one with the compost pile before I let that happen!

Sunday, August 21, 2016

You're One or the Other

An old computer joke goes: “There are 10 kinds of people. Those who understand binary arithmetic and those who don't.” I'm sure that was told to me by an old computer.

Just so we are all starting from the same point: “10” is the way you would write the number “2” if you were working in the binary number system used by computers. Looked at that way, the first sentence makes sense.

We look at things in binary: black and white, us and them, good and bad, good and evil (which is more theological than “good and bad”), butter or Parkay (for those of us of a certain age).

Not one to rock the boat (you're in the boat or out) I'll bring this around to gardening by noting that gardeners seem to be collectors or landscapers.

You're a collector if you have to have every fern that is sold, or every azalea hybridized by Ben Morrison. Hunting down the missing ones is part of the sport. Over time, only the rarest are still to be found. They are put in the ground where there is a bare spot next to some plant (the new plant, not the collector). Do you care if the neighboring colors go well together? Do they bloom at the same time? Does one grow rapidly and completely shade the other? Doesn't matter. You almost have them all!

You're NOT a landscaper if you hire one, producing a hardscaped deck area, paths and a Koi pool. The remaining ground will be filled with stuff bought in bulk from a garden center giving a good discount. When the landscaper has left it's all finished. The grounds look OK to you. Your party guests give the required compliments.

“... it's all finished”?? For a non-gardener it is. For a landscaper a garden is NEVER done. That's another dichotomy to add to the ones above. A landscaping gardener is always moving a plant that matures and then doesn't look as good as hoped. It is replaced by one that was a gift from a fellow gardener. Or a new introduction from a nearby garden center. Or purchased online. And there are always plants in pots: rookies waiting to replace veterans.

I will have to say that I am on the side of the angels: a landscaper. Collectors are silly creatures who fill gardens with plants named after Disney characters, fill rooms with beer bottles or sports teams memorabilia ... and don't get me started on National Geographics!

You're a landscaper if you put this plant over there because it looks better and fits into the whole scheme of that section.

A small plot, even the postage stamp-sized area behind a townhouse, could have a hundred glazed pots in complementary colors with attractive shelving along the fences, all filled with a variety of plants that can be moved around to look good together.

In contrast, a large area could have a background of tall bushes and small trees with successively smaller plants cascading toward you. A path probably starts there. You might see some small but attractive hosta and heucheras by the path, their leaf textures rewarding you for wandering by. The trail leads to hidden gardens behind the tall plants. Yes, you DO wish you were there!

Collectors are crazy! Why can't everyone be like landscapers? Are you in or out?

Thursday, July 21, 2016

Red

The azaleas were overwhelmingly pastel.

When I finally decided, two decades ago, to see if I could keep the plants in my yard from dying I also wanted the palette to be juiced up. True reds would save the day.

I already had the azalea 'Mother's Day' and it looked fine, so I bought a number of others of that variety. However, over the years they grew slowly and looked a little sparse so they wouldn't do.

Asking an experienced grower about true reds, the recommendation of 'Hot Shot' was offered and I bought some of those. But they were an orangy-red and not what I was looking for. I suspect we all see colors slightly differently. Maybe 'Hot Shot' DOES look pure red to some people! 'Wolfpack Red' also had that orangy-red look to it, though the effect depended on the quality of the light and the effect seemed to vary from year to year. The color of most azaleas change slightly in that way. The color expert Don Voss noted that such small changes were still an unsolved problem.

'Red Ruffles'? It grew well, had a nice large flower and was a fine addition to the garden … but it seemed to have a trace of purple in it.

'Midnight Flare' stood out. Looked good, but a little late flowering (and getting disfigured by the fungus 'Petal Blight'). And it was a very dark red. As was 'Karafune'.

'Hershey Red'? The color was fine, though the flower and plant were small. Got to keep looking.

'Sunglow'? 'Johanna'? I couldn't put my finger on it, but they seemed ordinary in some inexpressible way. Some rejects from hybridizer Joe Klimavicz were also OK but still had an “ordinary” look. I guess that's why they were rejects!

Finally I found 'Coronado', a James Harris hybrid from Georgia. It was a perfect red, the flowers were good sized and the plant grew well. Well, THAT was taken care of!

What else did I like? Dark purples and strong bi-colors grab attention in the landscape, contrasting well with the dark green overtones of the grass, foliage and trees. 'Robin Hill Congo', a vigorous hybrid from Robert Gartrell, had large dark purple flowers that somehow were still showy. Bi-colors? Bob Stewart's 'Ashley Ruth', Pete Vines' 'Dawn Elizabeth' and the Glenn Dale 'Fawn' all seemed happy to grow and show off.

Returning to the show-stopper: what is it that makes red such a great garden color?

Could it be reds and oranges grab our attention like no other? Fire trucks and ambulances are red. Traffic cones are orangy-red.

Could it be the contrast with the greenery and blue skies? Contrast always grabs our attention, as painters and photographers will attest.

Could it be that our blood is red and our faces flush when we get excited? Umm ... no.

The final answer as to why the red flowers look so great in my yard is (wait for the drumroll…) because I like them!

Score: Emotion 1, Philosophy 0

Sunday, June 26, 2016

Colors

I'm not a fan of the monochrome of winter.

The winter is brown, black, gray and white. North of about latitude 30°: months in a row. Day after short, dark day. Wind. Damp cold. Desert dry house.

Rogers Hornsby, the Hall of Fame baseball player, said: “People ask me what I do in winter when there's no baseball. I'll tell you what I do. I stare out the window and wait for spring.”

OK, I'm not quite that bad. I wander out, poke a few holes in the ground, mix a little dirt, pull dead leaves off the bushes and generally putter around, but it's not the same as the rest of the year.

Winter colors? Holiday lights are fine in December evenings, but if they made up for the colors of our gardens we'd simply put up strings of them and declare our labors at an end.

Colorless can work: there is an artistic genre which specializes in black and white photography, emphasizing the form of objects without the distraction of color. Nice in small doses.

From late winter through early spring the shoots of bulbs expand and provide a daily surprise. Crocus' are the first to break the gloom with bright oranges, yellows and purples. They're small and it's rare to see a large area covered with them, but they confirm the early spring.

And then the azaleas. Lords of all they survey, coming at you with a brilliance that transforms the world! After the brown, black, gray and white of winter, our love affair with gardens is renewed. And what are those bright azalea colors that say “Spring!'? Reds, pinks, oranges, lavenders, and purples. It's too much for some people. Adrian Higgins, garden writer for the Post, finds them overwhelming and too much, maybe, for a delicate constitution.

Whites? A man of my acquaintance prefers whites over any other color. Ah, bleak winter again. Whites are good for separating two colors that might not look good side-by-side, but you don't want too many of them or the show weakens, hearkening back to the cold, dark times.

After the flower show of spring, plants grow and change shape, giving you a subtly different garden every day. You can see them straining for dominance as you stand surrounded. Summer is a deep green ocean, punctuated with a cicada's buzz.

More colors pop out in the fall. A few late-flowering plants show that they have something left in the tank and the canopy thins, revealing the puffy clouds and blue skies of the end of the year. Changes every day.

Everyone has their favorite colors and arrangements. For me the colors of winter are best shown in a supporting role, letting the unmatched blaze of the spectrum celebrate the new garden year.

Tuesday, May 24, 2016

Posterity

Sometime after I moved into my current home a neighbor told me about the people who used to live across the street. They took pride in their home and grounds, both of which were in Better Homes and Gardens Magazine. Time passed, eventually the house became too much for them and they moved away. Were they thinking of what their place would look like in a hundred years? Should I?

Consider:

The view across the street when I moved in was of trees and some bushes, decorated with a large variety of cars and trucks, many of them rusted and no longer in working order. The new family had driven over the plantings for the more or less permanent parking of their vehicles. A rusted truck in the front yard is a traditional decoration in some parts of the country. I could make out the bones of the original garden, which I had never seen, and notice some odd, large shrubbery that must have been a centerpiece when the photographers showed up.

Some later occurrences meshed with the above:

A) When a next door neighbor died his home was purchased by a family that grew up in a land with few trees. The centuries-old oaks came down despite my protestations about how it would look in our heavily wooded neighborhood and the denuded lot made the street look like it was missing a tooth.

B) The house on the other side of me is owned by a man who is renting it out but promises he will take down all the trees and build a Mc-mansion. After all, the trees make it harder for the construction workers to build and they might fall on the house! (the trees, I think, not the construction workers)

C) Attending some planning meetings for the Rt. 1 corridor where I live, a plan was revealed to have the DC Metro line extend into our neighborhood in twenty or thirty years. However, the subway people won't consider it until the population supports such an extension. That meant that the area must be leveled and high-rises constructed to draw in the people.

How does all of the above fit together? I'm landscaping a garden for myself, my wife and the people I know. The county will not take my half acre for a park the way the Margaret White Estate in Annandale, VA will be preserved. When they pull me out of the house feet-first those who move in next will bulldoze the property for soccer fields (remember – the trees might fall on your house!). The buyers, in turn, will be uprooted when the county uses eminent domain to take the property so that high-rises may be built (Think of the tax base! And the Metro!).

When I put that azalea over there because it looks good it has to be without a concern for posterity and how it will fit into the garden plan years after I'm gone. It has to look good NOW and for a decade or so hence.

After that only some pictures on the net will be left. Please visit (both the garden and the photos).

https://goo.gl/photos/g7XdWc1NXy93wBwJ8

Saturday, April 16, 2016

Plural

After years of research in arcane libraries I have discovered the use of plurals for groups: A flock of birds, a school of fish, a hive of bees, a pod of whales, a clutter of cats, a parliament of owls, a sleuth of bears, a streak of tigers, a silence of mimes, a neverthriving of jugglers. OK, one of those I just made up. So sue me.

Which brings me around to gardeners. Gardeners, for all the solitary pleasures enjoyed, are often social animals, gathering in groups to hear speakers, trade plant material, visit gardens and snack at a buffet. These are often called “meetings”, “tours”, “conventions” and the like. But there is no term for the actual collection of the gardeners themselves as there would be, say, for a mob of kangaroos (or a mob of mobsters??)


The Northern Virginia Chapter of the Azalea Society of America

What to call this grouping? Almost everything we grow turns out to be green, so: a Green of Gardeners? Maybe, but the “village green” may already have co-opted that term and even oil companies try to brand themselves as “green” nowadays.

A Flowering of Gardeners? Pretty appropriate, but vegetable gardeners don't often think of the flowers that their plants produce. And shade gardeners think more often of texture than color.

A Raceme of Gardeners? Could be, as we pack in a meeting room or a hotel check-in line we do resemble the flowers packed closely on a stem. But the word is a little too obscure and I didn't exactly know how to pronounce it myself until I looked it up while writing this.

A Waiting of Gardeners? One thing we all do is wait for almost a year to enjoy particular plants for a short time. We wait for the rain. Wait for the sunrise. Wait for the end of winter. Unfortunately, most people who will hear the term (and not read it) will look first to our girth, thinking of the homonym “weighting”.

A Patience of Gardeners? I would take that as a compliment and be happy with the term. A little quiescent for my taste, especially as I'm simultaneously tearing out weeds, slapping at gnats and clearing the sweat from my eyes.

What else is common to gardeners? We've probably all stood in our gardens with a coffee cup, thinking about what needs to be transplanted (a cup of gardeners?) We all do laundry after the day is over, we all wear hats, we all use tools (a shovelful of gardeners?) I'm out of ideas, other than A Hopeful of gardeners. You can do better so please make a suggestion. Off now to meet a Host of Hosta gardeners!

Saturday, April 9, 2016

Pumpkin Pie in the Heat of July?

I liked the flowers at first.

A vine had appeared with very large blue flowers on a pole in a neighbor's yard. I didn't remember seeing it on my jogs and decided that it must have just been planted. A month later the vine and flowers were still there, exactly as they had appeared the first day. Come fall and then winter, those large flowers on the vine were still shining as gloriously as the day they were made in some Chinese factory.

Is that homeowner's approach better than planting the vine, waiting for the flowers and then cutting it down when it turns brown in November? I tried to think why and then I remembered how much the tiny crocuses are enjoyed in the brown dirt, snow patches and dead leaves of late winter. It was so long since I had seen any flowers and nothing else was around for competition.

Female Downy Woodpecker, Male Goldfinch at my feeder

Why do I like the yellow and blue Warblers of spring more than the birds that visit my feeder? The warblers only pass through during a brief window in May whereas the Chickadees, Cardinals and Blue Jays are always here.

The only place to be in early May

The dominance of azaleas in May, a mass of color in the landscape, is like no other display and I'd rather be in my backyard then than anywhere else. A wall of soft, bright color here. A blaze of garish lights there. And of course they fade, but while our time with them is short, it is special.

We don't eat pumpkin pie and drink eggnog in July. The few times that we enjoy them are memorable.

Christmas lights look great in the winter evenings, but a neighbor keeps a small evergreen lit with them all year and it just becomes part of the woodwork.

The flower colors of spring, the dark green dominance of summer and the leaves of fall are pleasures that haven't been seen in a year and we always look forward to the show.

I hate winter: cold, windy, icy, dark. But I grudgingly admit that without that contrast the spring wouldn't look, feel and smell as great. So I'll raise a cup of hot chocolate to the collapsing thermometer, wait for the first crocuses and give winter its due.

{{ An extended version of this essay was published on March 20, 2019 }}

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