Dooryards, Chipping Camden

Yesterday, I dropped my pruning equipment off at the local mower shop for sharpening. This left me without tools to work in my garden this morning. So I browsed through some pictures that my daughter and I took while on a trip to England last June. We concentrated on the Cotswolds andWhiltshire area seeking out gardens and monasteries. I have not traveled much in my life and rarely in June - a prime work month for decades. So in my retirement, I am trying to visit gardens that I have loved in pictures and history (Stourhead, Hidcote, Alhambra and Generalife) as my budget allows. On the way surprise gardens pop up naturally, as they did in Chipping Camden, England. Well travelled gardeners may say that Chipping Camden is a cliche of the Cotswolds but I found it charming and utterly alien.

Where is the plot of land for these Hollyhocks?

Lives are lived behind these doors but the curb garden is for all of us to enjoy.

These are just some of dooryards on Chipping Camden's main street. The age and history that accompanies these gardens is the stuff of legends and dreams. The health of the plant material is the stuff of envy. I could have stayed all summer.

Who would believe it. We've got turkeys in our yard for the first time ever! Our home hosts a number of different types of wildlife that live in our woods: owls, feral cats, racoons, rats, the occaisional fox along with various song birds and small rodents. We even have great blue herons that swoop down to catch the fish in our pond. But never turkeys. This is Long Island folks, around 40 miles from New York City! Apparently these turkeys are not escapees from captivity. Their origin is unknown. It is true that a local man decided to restore the wild turkey to Huntington. He apparently released 15 or so turkeys, on Thanksgiving day in our neighborhood. After much local uproar, he collected them and is raising them himself. This batch of seven birds is apparently not part of the original group. Personally, I am not buying this explanation. Our local town animal control officers want nothing to do with my turkeys - they are free to roam as their nature dictates.

What exactly is their nature and what are they likely to do in the future? Those questions sent me scuttling to Amazon.com for "The Wild Turkey: Biology and Management" edited by James Dickson and published by the National Wild Turkey Federation. (NWTF has a very informative website). The book is facinating and I now know more than you may want to hear about turkeys. But some facts have given me hope that I will not have to garden around turkeys this spring.
1. Turkeys only travel in mixed male/female groups in the winter. So my group of three males and four females foraging on acorns in my yard are pretty typical.
2. Turkeys mate promiscuously from late February to April, after which the females go off by themselves and nest. This may explain why I haven't seen the group in over a week.
3. Turkey eggs incubate for 28 days or so. The poults imprint on the hen and are able to fly 8 days after hatching. Poults follow the hen (who shows little maternal care for older poults) until the following winter when they meet up with a group again, not necessarily the same group.
The mortality rate of eggs and poults is high, possibly because the hen leaves the eggs alone to forage and spend the night in trees. Hens will attempt to chase off preditors though.
4. The toms ignore the hens after mating and usually travel with their sibling toms and exhibit pecking order dominance.
5. Turkeys do fly and they roost in trees at night. They are fond of hemlocks if given a choice.

So I have learned a bit about my turkeys and I have no idea if I will see them again. I suspect I will. Our oak woodland is their preferred habitat and my compost pile in the woodland has been attractive to them. I'll keep you posted (no pun intended).

A day of garden planning!

The weather on Long Island had been predictably rotten; first snow then rain and then back to snow flurries. What's a gardener to do? Plan for next year's garden, of course. I have one area in my garden that gets a good amount of sun - a premium for me among my oak woodland. It's also very wet. Last year I planted Mme. Theresa Hydrangeas in front of some cast off hydrangeas from a client's garden in hopes of absorbing some of the water. I had a corner spot in that space that was potentially experimental. I had just finished a thesis on a Victorian garden writer Jane Loudon and was caught up in elephant ears, cannas and hibiscus; so naturally I planted a few. Come November, the cannas and elephant ears needed lifting and storing. (I think the cannas were of the Humbolt strain and the elephant ears of straight species Colocasia esculenta. The elephant ears easily out grew their stated 36"/3 foot expected limit. Hey, they were happy!) Today I checked on their status in my unheated basement. They looked fine. I've posted some pictures of first, the lifted corms - how beautiful and colorful (cannas in the background). The final pic is of the colocasia today in my basement, packed in moss. Now I know that my three crates of tubers and corms are viable, I can plan an even more over the top tropical garden for this year.
I am still having trouble inserting pics within the blog - any help out there?

Here's the disappointment:

I wrote earlier that February is the month to get a taste of spring and then be disappointed because it never lasts. February has been proven true to form....again. In my last post I wrote of my lovely visit to Planting Fields Arboretum last Thursday. Here is a picture of Friday morning! What a difference a day makes.

Actually I needed this winter blast. I gave into the grey cold, changed my plans, and pulled my chair up to the window for a full day fantasia of snow. Quietly and inward and peaceful....and very thankful for heat.

In my own Backyard: Planting Fields Arboretum, Oyster Bay, New York

Last week David Perry at "A Photographer's Garden" (see sidebar) posted pictures from a guest photographer, Willow, of the Camellia House at Planting Fields Arboretum. Planting Fields is an old haunt of mine. During my horticulture student days it was a one-stop laboratory of cultivated and native plants. At that time I was more interested in the care and culture of the individual plants and not the overall design of the plantings and park. So I was more than happy to spend an afternoon at Planting Fields revisiting the house and garden with my new eyes as an historian and designer rather than as just a grower of plants. I'll share with you a few interesting nuggets from my recent visit. First - the teaser shot... the main greenhouse, first built in 1914 and expanded after 1918 by James Frederick Dawson of the Olmsted Brothers firm. More on that later.

Historical synopsis: William Coe bought an extant house, designed by Grosvenor Atterbury with 460 acres of land in 1914. Guy Lowell designed the greenhouses and Andrew Robeson Sargent (son of Charles Springer Sargent) laid out the initial landscape for the Coes. The House burned down in 1918, the same year that Sargent died. William Coe hired Walker and Gillette to design a new Tudor Style country house and the Olmsted Brothers, James Fredrick Dawson, lead designer, to ammend the grounds, transforming it into an unmistakable Olmsted work.

Here's one facet of the property that I expored during my visit that, in my opinion, reflects the brilliance of the Olmsted view. Follow the progressive changes in the landscape from the distance view of the Beech Copse to a more intimate experience of beech trees. (sorry folks, Blogger is not cooperating with the photo progression). Dawson draws the line from the specimen weeping tree, a linden I believe, to the beech copse in the distance. I was compelled to follow the line to the copse and finally stand surrounded by beeches. From the copse I walked around the perimeter of the lawn through dwarf conifer gardens and a holly walk. Just lovely. I did finally walk back to the camellia house for my annual visit. The camellias were only about a quarter in bloom so I may have to go back next week - rough!

Jasmine and Snow Drops

February on Long Island is a confusing month. Sixty degrees (F) one day and snow the next. It sets up a whole cycle of hope and then, disappointment. It's not spring but then again, the plant world is stirring and swelling. The first of the snow drops emerged and my winter jasmine is beginning to bloom. Wonderful!!!
For a better picture of snow drops, I direct you to David Perry's garden blog (see link on sidebar). David has a sublime photo blog that is a treat to browse. Thanks Kathy at Cold Climate Gardening for introducing us to David a few months ago.

Can Spring be far behind?

I missed February bloom day - again. Here is what I would have included had I been on time. I planted this Witch Hazel about ten years ago at my church, the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Huntington (NY). I'll admit that I planted it for myself and hoped that someone would notice its annual February display. Most do not. No matter. Witch hazels along with winter jasmine are my spring markers. Subtle. You have to go looking for them snow or rain.
Next come the hellebores. More pictures soon.

A Quiet Winter.....

Sorry folks, the blog still remains at the bottom of the "to do" list.

None the less, it has been a quiet winter punctuated by several trips and visits with old friends. I was jolted out of the usual winter slumber yesterday by a seminar held annually by Atlantic Nurseries, a specialty wholesale nursery on Long Island NY. I have been attending these seminars each winter for almost two decades. They are a chance to see your old friends in the professional horticultural world and learn a thing or two in the process. Also, they were always my wake-up call to start planning the spring season for my design/build business. I am mostly retired now with only a few projects on the horizon but I still felt the juice in the room - spring is nearly here.
The topic of this year's seminar was "Creating Great Gardens" with noted writer/designers Suzy Bales and Tracy DiSabato-Aust as speakers. I want to single out Tracy's newly re-released book "The Well-Tended Perennial Garden: Planting & Pruning Techiques" for special mention. I have been pruning perennials professionally (nice alliteration, ha!) for twenty years and I truly did not expect to learn much. How wrong. Tracy introduce a technique called premptive pruning - pruning to delay or extend bloom time (so that bank of asters would bloom after your client returned from their annual vacation instead of during...every year!) I would have liked to have had that tip articulated so well years ago. Get the book!
Suzy also has a new book out: The Garden in Winter: Plant for Beauty and interest in the quiet season. I have not read it yet but the pictures, as always, are beautiful. Her talk at the seminar was pulled from her 2004 book: Down-to-earth Gardener: Let Nature Guide you to Success in your Garden. I have not read that one yet but Suzy used photos from the book for her talk - beautiful and exhuberent!

It's grey and rainy today but after the seminar yesterday it's o.k. I'm juiced too! Spring is coming.

Been gone for a while....

Hello all! It's been quite a while since I published a post. Computer problems, network crashes, work, and travel have trumped www communications. The arrival of winter has brought me indoors and back to all of you! Yesterday (Sunday night) we started to get our first snow. I had just started a retaining wall in my side yard on Saturday. Work in my yard is always the last of the year, of course, and since I am supposed to be retired from professional landscaping I thought that I could sneak this work in earlier. No chance. But the hillside is graded and the wall partially built - this project can wait until next spring to finish.

Here are pictures of the Sunday snow and the Monday thaw! Tonight we are expecting snow again. This is typical winter weather here where we are near the warm ocean and bay water and on the edge of a planting zone (zone 6 and zone 7).

October Bloom Day

It's 10 mins. to 12 PM on 10/15/07 and I am trying for the fourth time to post my Bloom Day pictures for October. Blogger seems to be in meltdown presumably from all the other garden bloggers that are trying to post tonight. They tell me repeatedly that they are "aware of the problem" and are hopefully trying to fix it. Let's see as I try again to download my pictures for you all.

Ahh....

I have a few blooms left on my Graham Thomas rose - my favorite. The carpet roses along my walk are still blooming as well. The second picture is of a seasonal display of autumn flowers. While they are technically in bloom in my garden, I take no credit for their horticultural success. I will take credit for the blooming delphinium - blooming finally. I have coddled this plant, purchased new this spring, and fully expect it to die this winter. (sigh). I love them but truely know that they will never, ever, bloom like the delphiniums I photographed in England this past June. (see a previous post for pics.
It's 11:57 PM so I will post NOW.

Rain!

i have found what you are like

i have found what you are like

the rain

(Who feathers frightened fields

with the superior dust-of-sleep. wields

easily the pale club of the wind

and swirled justly souls of flower strike

the air in utterable coolness

deeds of gren thrilling light

with thinned

newfragile yellows

lurch and.press

--in the woods

which

stutter

and

sing

And the coolness of your smile is

stirringofbirds between my arms;but

i should rather than anything

have(almost when hugeness will shut

quietly)almost,

your kiss

e.e. cummings

The earth sighs, here, today, and then laughs with relief. I laugh with relief too - the weight of stewardship nearly broke my heart as I watched our woods weep and wilt in drought.

Kathryn

Fall, finally!

Yesterday, we closed up our house at the beach (a chore that is loaded with myths and rituals) and turned our focus to our home in Huntington. Our Long Island fall weather is mimicing a beautiful September with temps in the 80's and dry winds. But in fact, we are suffering through a damaging drought that hopefully will end tonight. In my yard, the native bottlebrush buckeye (Aesculus parviflora) is starting to turn. Unfortunately the leaves are dropping before the plant has a chance to turn completely yellow. That's the result of the drought. In my herb garden, a clematis sends out a late bloom among the basil and rosemary. I have been trying to get this clematis to travel up my trellis for three years now. It seems content to send out a bloom now and then where it is. I am just happy it is alive. I do not have great luck with clematis.

Salvias in Fall Bloom

I was unable to resist these salvias last spring. Seduced by the names and descriptions alone, I dreamed of new (to me) fall color in my garden. I was not disappointed. The first salvia, Salvia madrensis, is also called the forsythia sage. It hails from the Sierra Madre region of Mexico, preferring elevations of 4-5,000 ft. Optimally it grows taller than 10ft and forms lovely large clumps. Mine is about 7ft. and has only three stalks. It is striking non the less.
The second salvia I belive is a cultivar of Salvia leucantha, perhaps 'Santa Barbara'. It's native to Central America and Mexico. My specimen is approximately a 3 X 3' subshrub, quite tidy and contained. The third I know only as Salvia 'Purple Majesty'. Tall and rambling, it is supported by my late asters. Lastly is a Salvia involucrata cultivar 'Mulberry Jam'. It is a light and airy plant that needs support. It has been blooming since the beginning of September. It's a true winner. (see floridata.com for more information)

Jane Loudon, in her 1854 American edition of Gardening for Ladies writes: "No one who has only seen the common Sage growing in a kitchen-garden could imagine the splendidly flowering plants which belong to the genus Salvia. ... They differ in their habits as much as in their flowers; some are shrubby, some perennial, some biennial, and some annual; and some are so tender as to require a stove; while others must be kept in a frame or greenhouse, and the greater part are quite hardy in the open air. All kinds should be grown in a light rich soil; and they are progagated by cuttings, division of the root, or seeds, which last nearly all the species ripen in great abundance." Thank you Jane, as always. I'll be collecting seeds soon.

Garden Bloggers' Book Club Aug.-Sept., 2007

Like the garden bloggers' bloom day, I have been following and reading the selected books on the garden blogger's book club started by Carol over at Maydreamsgarden.blogspot.com for several months now. I haven't contributed a review yet, but this month I'm on time. I have carefully avoided reading the other reviews so as not to influence my opinion.

A Hoe Lot of Trouble by Heather Webber, 2004:
When Carol suggested a gardening mystery for the August/September selection of the Garden Bloggers' Book Club I was thrilled. I was beginning a long vacation at the beach and a mystery was perfect escapist reading. I ordered two selections by Heather Webber, A Hoe Lot of Trouble, and Digging Up Trouble. I also ordered two additional mysteries by Susan Wittig Albert: Bleeding Hearts and Thyme of Death. I read them all. Webber's books were terrible!
They were formulaic, predictable, and very light on horticultural information. Here's the formula: a strong woman with an over developed and unbelievable sense of curiosity finds herself unexpectedly in the middle of a murder case. She has either been dumped for another woman and thus has a chip on her shoulder or has just started a relationship with another strong man (pick a cop for either). Her children, family members,or friends generally get involved and have to be rescued. Everyone survives and the murderer is usually someone you do not care for in the first place. The protagonist's career changes from author to author. Caterer - Diane Mott Davidson, English Professor and musician - Virginia Swift, Bounty Hunter - Janet Evonovich, Ex lawyer turned Herbal Shop Keeper - Susan Wittig Albert, Failed law student turned Florist - Kate Collins just to name a few. Some like Davidson, Swift, Evonovich are successful primarily because they are witty and down right hysterical at times. Others like Webber and Collins should find another profession. Webber's heroine is a landscape designer whose company specializes in "surprise garden makeovers". She hires an interesting group of ex offenders and has a parole officer as a best friend. Her husband the cop has left her for his squad partner and his son is a teenager on the edge. Forget the murder situation - I get them mixed up between her two books - they are not compelling. Webber has the ingredients of a good yarn but she falls short on the delivery. Susan Wittig Albert's China Bayles series is better written and includes more horticultural information. I would place her in the middle of the pack. Webber and A Hoe Lot of Trouble - don't bother reading. There are better authors and yarns in the genre. I may have had beach brain and just wanted a beach read for vacation but A Hoe Lot of Trouble and Digging Up Trouble came up very shallow.

Bloom Day, September 15, 2007
I love to look at the garden bloggers' picture on "Bloom Day" (generally the 15th of the month). I have vowed to be aware of dates and get my pictures posted in time - I haven't made it yet but this late entry is a close as I have gotten to date. My garden had run on autopilot for much of August and September while I was on Fire Island. I did manage a good weeding by the 15th and began to top dress the beds with compost. I had started a new shade garden in the spring and added this barrel to a spot that has yet to be planted.




Note: the pics are out of order - just another newby glitch!

I've also got a bumper crop of tall marigolds crowding out various herbs. They really did well in this raised bed. By the front walk my sedum is beginning to bloom and that means that the bees will be back. I love sedum Autumn Joy and struggle with its attraction to bees as I am very allergic to their stings! Finally, for this Bloom Day I included a pot of begonias with one new bloom. I brought this pot indoors last winter and plan to do so again. I find the variety and patterns of leave continually facinating and somewhat humorous.

That's some of what was blooming on the 15th. Today, my asters and salvias have started blooming and the roses are gearing up for a final show but that's for another blog.

Speaking of blogs, bees, and bloom days, check out Carol's bee story on maydreamsgardens on blogger.com - horrific! I've been there Carol!

As August sails to a close, I left Fire Island, NY yesterday to visit our winter home in Huntington. Mail needed to be collected. Plants and planters needed water and some TLC - assurances that I would be back soon. The abundance of summer blooms are past but a few continue - phlox, re blooming platycodons, roses, late hydrangeas, to name a few. My tall marigolds are hitting their stride and the fall blooming salvias (annuals) are coming into their own. Yesterday, I arrived home too late to see this night blooming water lily in full display. But today, at dawn I caught its full glory. This beauty is our only lily as our pond is too small for all but a few water plants. We have, on average, about 20 goldfish that love the lily's cover - it protects them from poaching blue herons and feral cats!

In addition to the lily, another part of the garden is looking particularly lush. Elephant ears, cannas, hibiscus (not in bloom at the moment) and blue lobelia thrive in a chronically wet spot. Victorian styled gardens containing these dominant plants were quite out of favor during the early twentieth century. That's is not my view today. I marvel at the ability these plants have to grow so quickly and at their usefulness in truly tough garden locations. They will always have a place in my garden. Besides, they multiply like crazy!

It's Fall
It may still be August but fall has announced its presence today. We are in the last week of our summer retreat on Fire Island, New York. It's 68 degrees F. with a strong dry wind from the East. We still have some late season blueberries - enough for another batch of muffins or two, but the big buzz around here concerns the ripening of beach plums (Prunus maritima). Beach plum jelly is a major love of the residents of this sand spit. The color of beach plums is intoxicating, ranging from purple to blue to reds, pinks, and green. The jelly is a clear claret color with a subtle taste. This week I will go in search of beach plums to take home for processing into jelly. Ummm. Another way to treat beach plums is to make a chunky freezer sauce for ice cream. Christmas pies with ice cream and beach plum sauce - Wow! I have not made sauce for years. Maybe its time.

Fall is also the time for white tail deer bucks to strut their stuff. We live amongst the deer daily (not the other way around) and they are usually benign. But this weekend I was stopped on my walk by an imposing buck with a well formed rack who had no intention of moving out of the way. I don't recall ever having to question my safety around deer before. There are way too many here and in the fall, they seem to be asserting their dominance.

What has this to do with gardening and landscape history - everything! On Fire Island they have reduced the number of species of native plants dramatically. Ornamental gardening requires fencing or very judicious selection. Grey herbs, cleome, ornamental grasses, caryopteris, vitex, some foxglove, marigolds, and the dreaded bamboo are among the deer reject options. New blueberries and beach plums must be caged until they are tall enough to withstand deer poaching or old enough to have acquired enough local soil acidity.

So fall is blowing in and as I pick beach plums this week I will reflect on the balance of nature and what happens when that balance is disturbed as it is here with deer.

Here are more pictures from Lacock Abbey. Wonderous differences in texture! June is a perfect month for flowers.

My son is home, visiting. He has kindly taken me under his wing and has begun to explain the mysteries of blogging. I hope that my blog will begin to improve!. On the last post I commented on Lacock Abbey and its newly replanted border in a walled garden. These pictures represent tutorials on resizing photos into web friendly formats. The Lacock delphiniums came in multiple shades of dazzeling blue and were strongly swaying in the rainy breeze like welcoming ladies at a floral party. You may recognize the Abbey from the first Harry Potter movie. The Abbey survived Henry VIII's distruction by having been bought by one of Henry's supporters (long story there - another time perhaps). He bought the whole town while he was at it. The town and Abbey had remained in the same family until the mid twentieth century - amazing! I urge you to put Lacock on your must see list. By the way, the house built over the Abbey is a Jacobean fantasy - the garden around the house is English Arts and Crafts. Here's a link to some additional photos..

I have been thinking recently about the floods in Tewksbury and the Glouchester area. I visited that region of England in June, traveling with my daughter Sarah. We were combining our love of gardens with, in my case, a love of English garden history, and in Sarah's case, her intense interest in early English abbeys and early monastic life. It rained during most of our trip and I guess in never stopped. We are heartbroken when we consider the damage both to the land and its people. The English are such wonderful stewards of their land and history. I know it will recover.
In the next several Blogs I will include some pictures from our trip. But first I will start with Lacock Abbey because it is both an historic garden from several eras and an abbey. (Some of you may recognize the Abbey from the early Harry Potter movies.) The walled garden was used in WWII as a victory garden for the town. It is in the early stages of becoming a demostration garden. I wish I could grow such beautiful delphiniums.

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