The good. Jeff Gillman is an associate Horticulture professor at the University of Minnesota and a regular contributor to the gardening section of the StarTribune. He recently wrote about understanding the difference between truly “green” products and those that merely claim it.
…you can’t rely on the name of the product or the manufacturer’s claims to tell you which is which. You have to look for the list of ingredients—often in small print—to determine whether a product really is good for the environment. ~ Jeff Gillman, StarTribune, May 2, 2012
Be wary of these ingredients in fertilizers and pesticides: bat guano, rock phosphate, copper, pyrethrum Instead look for: corn gluten meal, Cotton seed meal, bone meal, blood meal, feather meal, Milorganite, sulfur, insecticidal soap
The good. Another good thing? Earthworms.
Amy Stewart, author of The Earth Moved: On the Remarkable Achievements of Earthworms, likes earthworms.
In the “Garden Confidential” column of the June 2012 issue of Fine Gardening magazine, Stewart discussed earthworms and soil biology: “I think the earthworm is a good gateway organism to everything that’s living in the soil…earthworms are an indicator of the health of our soil.”
The ridiculous. The March/April 2012 issue of The American Gardener, the magazine of the American Horticultural Society, included a story that is part absurd, part precious and part pretentious.
In the second paragraph of “Sound in the Garden,” Karen Bussonlini wrote the sentence which rendered the rest of her story unnecessary and, frankly, ridiculous: “At my home, all I have to do is open the windows to be in the garden…”
Exactly. Sound in a garden is merely part of the whole experience of being outside and sharing that space with other living things.
The only thing I’ll give her is the sound of moving water which, if that floats your boat, you might have to add via a fountain or other water feature. (But I abhor the monstrosities of rock piles and fake streams built by big tractors and backhoes.)
One goofy guy “so enjoyed the sensation of walking through fallen sycamore leaves that he ordered them to be left unraked in his New York garden.”
Container gardens—whether in pots, window boxes or hanging baskets—are regularly featured in garden magazines and catalogs. But have you noticed?
They’re not pretty anymore.
Whether in Fine Gardening, White Flower Farm or countless others in my stack of reading material, there haven’t been any pretty container gardens. Sure, the containers are full of colorful plants and have a screaming focal point. I notice nice contrast and good variation in texture. And they all adhere to the now-famous threesome of thriller spiller and filler.
But I think they’re too full, too colorful and lack many design principles that would give them some semblance of grace or balance…or prettiness.
Here are the problems.
Overplanted. The container gardens are grossly overplanted…and I do mean grossly.
I like to cram lots of different plants into one container for a lush, abundant look. ~ Todd Holloway, Fine Gardening Container Gardening, Summer 2012
I couldn’t disagree more. While I, too, like a look of luxuriance and fullness, the plants shouldn’t look crowded. Each plant should be allowed space to not only to show but to grow.
A prime reason I’m a gardener is I like to grow plants, with grow being the key word. I like to start with a seed or a small plant, nurture it and watch it grow. It’s no fun to buy a plant already full grown and spend the rest of the season cutting it back.
In addition, too many plants look messy. Rather than epitomizing the design principle of variety, these container gardens are so cluttered that the overall feeling is confusing.
(I’ve never understood the full hanging baskets and container gardens sold at nurseries and greenhouses in spring. If they’re already mature, how pretty will they look in mid July?)
Proportion. Quite simply, proportion is lacking. The overplanted pots appear top heavy, cumbersome and many look like unstable. The large leaves of bananas, cannas or colocasias are just too big for their containers.
Colors. Container gardens full of plants with chartreuse and purple foliage are the new three-red-geraniums-and-a-spike. When first introduced many years ago, colored foliage provided a different look that seemed both refreshing and contemporary. Now those same plants are trite.
Plant breeders have been busy fiddling around. In a special publication of Fine Gardening, Container Gardening/Summer 2012, I counted 18 cultivars each of plants with chartreuse- and purple-colored foliage.
Genuses included begonia, canna, coleus, colocasia, cypress, dracaena, hakonechloa, heuchera, ipomea, lysimachia, phormium and sedum.
Horticulturists outdid themselves when naming all these new plants. Aren’t some of these clever? (I know that cultivar names should have single tick marks but, for the ease of reading and to reduce excessive punctuation, I’ve eliminated them just for these lists.)
Purple cultivar names: Blackie, Black Magic, Dusky Chief, Obsidian, Religious Radish, Trusty Rusty, Bronze Age, Bloodgood, Big Red Judy, Dipt in Wine, Spitfire, Sky Fire, Bonfire, Bellfire, Frosted Violet, Plum Pudding. The ‘Sweet Caroline’ cultivar of Ipomea has four itself: Bewitched, Purple, Sweetheart Purple and Sweetheart Red.
Thankfully, these problems are easily fixed. Here are three ideas for pretty container gardens.
Use green. I mean green as in grass green, emerald green, kelly green. It is nature’s background color. If you must use chartreuse, plant sparingly.
Use flowers. A sure way to get back to pretty is to use flowering plants. Remember old-fashioned annuals such as nasturtiums, nicotianas, zinnias, petunias and impatiens? Don’t forget heliotropes, fuchsias, lantanas and tuberous begonias. Even the much-maligned annual geraniums are now available in gorgeous colors.
Consider, too, woody flowering plants like roses, magnolias and hydrangeas. Why not try a shrub or small tree that’s perhaps not quite hardy—redbud, fringe tree, pieris, callicarpa, witch hazel or, as previously posted, my favorite Koreanspice viburnum?
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. ~Leonardo DaVinci
Keep it simple. Use one, or maybe three, or at the most five plants rather than the eight, nine or 10 plants crammed into the container gardens in the Fine Gardening publication. If you need variety, place the pots in a group.
Photo credits: Fine Gardening/Container Gardens/Summer 2012, White Flower Farm catalog, Jill Bickford.
A Rule Against Murder and A Trick of the Light are both by Louise Penny and continue my infatuation with this murder mystery series. Penny’s hero is Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, who’s ably assisted in his investigations by two wonderful characters, Inspector Jean-Guy Beauvoir (who’s in love with Gamache’s married daughter) and Agent Isabelle Lacoste. The setting is in and around the village of Three Pines, not far from Montreal, and is as much a character as the people.
The Trumpet of the Swan, Essays of E. B. White and Writings from the New Yorker 1925 – 1976, all by E. B. White. Several weeks ago NPR featured Michael Sims, who had just published his book, The Story of Charlotte’s Web. Sims was a great storyteller and I became fascinated not only by White himself but by his children’s books. White is truly a gifted essayist whether he’s writing about his life in Allen Cove on the coast of Maine, his life in New York City, academia, science or politics. I especially enjoyed his essays on Henry David Thoreau, a hero of mine, too.
And even when he (Thoreau) was voicing man’s highest aspirations in sentences of great power and intensity, a muskrat would somehow work its way into the thing. As long as there are men and muskrats, there will be readers who will ache to identify themselves with the spirit and the sense of this revolutionary book, this solid and everlasting book… ~ E. B. White, Writings from The New Yorker 1925 - 1976
Simply Truffles, by Patricia Wells, is one of the two books in my stack that aren’t on loan from the library. I bought this used book online. Wells splits her time between homes in Paris and Provence (not too shabby!) and has written a couple of my favorite cookbooks. Even though black truffles (the truffle of the title) are very expensive and hard to get, I couldn’t resist the book.
For I read cookbooks. I read the Foreword, the Introduction, the notes, the quotes and the recipes. Even if I never make a specific recipe, the books are inspirational jumping off points. But this one has me so besotted I might have to scheme my way to France some winter.
Whosoever says truffle, utters a grand word, which awakens erotic and gastronomic ideas. ~ Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, The Physiology of Taste (1825)
Flower Garden Designs, by Penelope Hobhouse, actually contains two of her wonderful books, Penelope Hobhouseon Gardening and Flower Gardens. This has been in my library for years but every now and then I pull it out and re-read it for inspiration. She’s one of the best—a quintessential English gardener with knowledge, artistry, forthrightness and earthiness.
Scent is the most potent and bewitching substance in the gardener’s repertory and yet it is the most neglected and least understood. The faintest waft is sometimes enough to induce feelings of hunger or anticipation, or to transport you back through time and space to a long-forgotten moment in your childhood. ~ Stephen Lacey, Scent in Your Garden
Claude Monet credited flowers as the inspiration for his artistry. As I think back, my motivation for becoming a gardener was fragrance.
My earliest memory of flowers is a bed of lily-of-the-valley that had been planted by my parents. Even though just a toddler at five years of age, I vividly remember the flowers that ran along the entire north side of our cream-colored stucco garage. Somehow, that fragrance still evokes feelings of innocence and simplicity.
I’ve grown woody plants like witch hazel, basswood, lilacs, roses, mock oranges and sweet autumn clematis. I’ve grown peonies, violets and sweet peas, of course, but also, sweet woodruff, nicotiana and nasturtium for their sweet scent. And even though I love to cook, a prime reason for growing big pots of herbs—far more than I could ever use—is their fragrance.
My serendipitous encounter with Koreanspice viburnum (Viburnum carlesii) was almost 20 years ago on Martha’s Vineyard. Even though I ate my fill of fresh fish and seafood and drank beer at The Black Dog Tavern before it became popular, I was enchanted with the garden of my B&B. The daffodils and tulips were blooming—which was nice—and a border of Koreanspice viburnum was in full bloom. Its spicy sweet scent perfumed the moist island air and has haunted me ever since.
Last summer I finally had my chance. In a new garden bed facing east was a perfect spot for my very own Koreanspice viburnum. There was protection from north and west and it was close to the house. And the best part? The plant is adjacent to a side door that I go in and out all day long.
Koreanspice viburnum facts. • The genus Viburnum belongs to the Caprifoliaceae (Honeysuckle) family. Other members include elderberry, snowberry, honeysuckle, bush honeysuckle and the darling twinflower (Linnaea borealis). • Among the 120 or so species of viburnum are several wonderful plants native to Minnesota: arrowwood (V. dentatum), nannyberry (V. lentago) and American cranberrybush (V. trilobum). • Viburnums are opposite in leaf arrangement, i.e., leaves and buds are opposite each other on the stem. • Koreanspice is native to Korea and was introduced to the U.S. in 1812. • Mature size is 4 – 5’ in height by 4 – 8’ in width. • Hardiness Zone 4/5 to 7/8. • Leaves are cool—thick, sturdy, heavily veined and fuzzy (pubescent) on the top. Fall color is a pretty shade of deep red. • Flowers are rounded cymes, about 3” across and made up of many ½” individual flowers. They are pinkish in bud but open to creamy white, thick petals. • Fragrance is extraordinary and incomparable—a combination of spicy like clove and sweet like a gardenia. • Prefers full sun to part shade and well-drained, slightly acid soil.
What does Dirr think? Seldom do Michael Dirr and I differ but he wasn’t very complimentary about Koreanspice viburnum in Manual of Woody Landscape Plants. He did note that it is “a valuable shrub for fragrance” but also wrote: “some of the newer cultivars and V. x juddii are superior and should be used in preference.”
Koreanspice viburnum alternatives. Since Dirr and others do have valid points about the robustness of Koreanspice viburnum, here are three other plants that could be considered.
Viburnum x burkwoodii This cross of V. carlesii and V. utile (Service Viburnum, native to Central China) was developed in England and introduced in 1924. It seems to be hardier and sturdier but the fragrance isn’t as good.
Virburnum x burkwoodii ‘Mohawk’ This plant is the result of a backcross of V. burkwoodii to V. carlesii made in 1953. Again, it is noted for sturdier growth habit, in addition to prominent red flower buds and more prolific flowering over a longer time period.
Viburnum x juddii William H. Judd at the Arnold Arboretum (Harvard University) developed this cross between V. carlesii and V. bitchuiense (Bitchiu viburnum, native to Japan and Korea) in 1920. Dirr reported: “I feel it is superior to run-of-the-mill V. carlesii and may eventually replace it in northern and southern areas.” As to its fragrance, he was “hard-pressed to distinguish between the two.”
Finally… Gardening is supposed to be fun. If you’re lusting after a plant, buy it and try it. Honestly, the highlight of my garden so far this spring are the flowers on the Koreanspice viburnum.
Ben Braddock, Dustin Hoffman’s character in the 1967 movie The Graduate, was succinctly advised about future career opportunities by Mr. McGuire: “I just want to say one word to you.”
Plastics.
I have one word for gardeners.
Soil.
Soil is the most crucial component of a garden. To grow healthy plants, soil is more important than sun, shade, moisture or Hardiness Zone.
Since gardeners are in the throes of planning and potting up container gardens, window boxes and hanging baskets, now is a good time for a little refresher course in soil.
Soil facts. • Soil is the mineral and organic matter on the top layer of the earth\'s surface suitable for the growth of land plants. • Soil is formed by environmental factors (water and temperature) and by organisms acting on parent rock material over time. • Soil is not the material on the earth\'s surface areas that are permanently covered by more than 8 feet of water. • Plants need soil as a water and nutrient source. Tiny tertiary roots are the major absorption means. • Most plants need soil as the means of support. Exceptions include epiphytes which grow in trees and have aerial roots that don\'t reach the ground. • Productive soil is about 50% air that alternately fills with water for use by the plant and then slowly dries out. • A fascinating, vital, complex symbiosis occurs between soil and soil organisms. And, according to Horticulture magazine, "There are more living organisms [in one handful of soil] than there are people in the world."
Potting soil. Good garden soil isn’t the same as good potting soil.
I work hard to ensure that the soil in my garden is the best I can give my plants, and they reward me with robust health. Yet that same good soil if transferred to a container would cause the plants in it to languish. That’s because garden soil doesn’t offer enough air, water, or nutrients to a plant growing a container. Potting soils are specifically formulated to overcome these limitations. ~ Dr. Lee Reich, Fine Gardening #106
Dr. Lee Reich knows his stuff. He has quite a resume, including an undergraduate degree in Chemistry, an MS in Soil Science, another MS in Horticulture and a PhD in Horticulture. He worked at various colleges and the USDA, but has spent the last 18 years as a horticultural consultant and writer. In addition to nine books he authored, he is a frequent contributor to Fine Gardening magazine.
Lee Reich’s Homemade Potting Soil. This recipe is simple, easy and good. Because his mixture contains organic matter, no additional fertilization is necessary “for a year or two,” he wrote.
Put 2 gallons of each ingredient into a large tub or wheelbarrow: • peat moss • perlite • compost • good garden soil
Mix components gently. Place ½ inch mesh screen over tub or wheelbarrow and sift above mixture into it.
Then add ½ cup each of: • dolomitic limestone • soybean meal • greensand • rock phosphate • kelp powder
Mix thoroughly with a shovel. Add water if the mixture seems dry.
Chris Mathan and I love flowers. She kneels down in muddy garden beds or twists into thorny shrubs, adjusts the settings on her camera and shoots close-ups of flowers. She prefers early morning light and gets excited if there are dewdrops on a petal or two.
Her results are the best flower photographs I’ve seen.
2012 Why We Love Flowers Desk Calendar. For three years Chris and I have produced "Why We Love Flowers" 5” x 7” desk calendar. Each month featured one of Chris’ stunning flower photographs and I added identification and a line of text.
The 2012 calendar includes photographs of hellebores, roses, tulips, lupines, poppies, nasturtiums, sunflowers and dahlias, among others. Included is a 5” x 7” clear acrylic frame.
Why We Love Flowers Note Cards. This year we decided to branch out (no pun intended) and collaborated on Why We Love Flowers note cards. It was difficult but we pared down our choices to eight of Chris’ photographs: dogwood, hellebore, hydrangea, lilac, peony, poppy, rose, sunflower.
Since there is lots of space on the back of the card, I included pertinent information about the plant and either a favorite quote or a bit of poetry.
We offer the blank note cards singly or in sets of six with one each of the following cards: dogwood, hydrangea, peony, poppy, rose, sunflower.
2012 Why We Love Flowers Desk Calendar Set…..reduced!....$6.95 Single Note Cards…..$3.95 Note Card Sets (6 Note Cards per Set)…..$19.95
To keep this whole process simple and easy, shipping is free!
How to order. Download and complete the Dazzle Gardens Order Form. Click here: dazzlegardensorderform.pdf. Make out a check to Dazzle Gardens for the amount due and mail both to the address below. As soon as I get your information, I’ll package up your order and send it off straight away via the U.S. Post Office.
Recently I introduced Doug Tallamy, an entomologist at the University of Delaware. As a result of astute observation and extensive research, he theorized that Lepidoptera insects need native plants—not alien plants—as a food source. Furthermore, many of the plants in our gardens aren’t native and so don’t provide that food source. Since insects are at the lower end of the food chain, it is imperative to nurture them, which in turn, benefits every other species up the chain, including humans.
In other words, plant decisions are crucial and since gardeners choose plants for their gardens, they hold the key.
As gardeners and stewards of our land, we have never been so empowered to help save biodiversity from extinction, and the need to do so has never been so great. All we need to do is plant native plants! ~ Doug Tallamy
Tallamy was involved in seven research projects over the course of seven years. As a result, he published a comprehensive, 37-page list of plants—both native and alien woody and herbaceous—and the Lepidoptera species that feed (or don’t) on those plants.
The chart is fascinating reading and I spent hours looking up favorite plants. Some things were astounding; others downright disappointing.
I should probably never grow one of my favorite trees, a Katsura tree (Cerdidiphyllum japonicum) . Even though an introduced plant, it’s positively stunning in all seasons. Alas, it feeds no Lepidoptera.
Thank goodness I don’t have to feel guilty about lilacs (Syringa). Even though it’s an alien, 40 species of Lepidoptera feed on it.
Here’s another reason not to plant weigela (Weigela). I’ve never been a fan anyway; just never saw much redeeming about the plant even for that short period when in flower. Tallamy reported only two Lepidoptera feed on it.
How remarkable that two plants renowned and heralded for their wildlife largesse are practically worthless in the insect-feeding department. Even though Trumpet Vine (Campsis) is native, it feeds a mere seven Lepidoptera. Most ironic of all is the Butterfly Bush (Buddleia), an alien plant, is a food source for only one native Lepidoptera.
A big, fat zero. While the following plants are pretty, they have no redeeming quality on the biodiversity scale. No Lepidoptera eat these plants. • Astilbe (Astilbe) • Million Bells (Calibrachoa) • Crocus (Crocus) • Gaura (Gaura) • Hellebore (Helleborus) • Daylily (Hemerocallis) • Hosta (Hosta) • Plume Poppy (Macleaya) • Grape Hyacinth (Muscari) • Siberial Squill (Scilla) • Tulip (Tulipa) • Periwinkle (Vinca)
Details about Doug Tallamy’s research. • Study area was the southeastern Pennsylvania Piedmont. • Seven published studies cover a time frame of more than seven years. • Studies included native and alien Lepidoptera species that fed on both native and alien plants. • Findings are listed by genus of plant.
Lepidoptera facts. • Genus that includes butterflies and moths. • Have four life stages: egg, larva (caterpillar), pupa (chrysalis, cocoon), adult. • Worldwide there are about 2,000 butterfly species and 198,000 moth species. • Butterflies fly during the day; moths at night. • Butterflies rest with wings closed over their backs; moths rest with wings spread.
I’m pleased to share that the newly published May/June 2012 issue of Northern Gardener includes an article I wrote titled "English Borders for the North."
Last spring, three friends, Jill Bickford, Cathy Nyquist and Maureen Dahlquist, and I traveled to England. We visited several famous gardens, toured the countryside and ate excellent English breakfasts and pub meals. It was a fantastic trip and I returned home positively bubbling over with ideas—both to practice in my garden and to write about.
The premise for this magazine piece was the following:
“The four of us had been continually amazed. The gardens we explored were beautiful, certainly, but there was something else that made them distinct from gardens in the United States. Was it the robustness of the perennials? Was it the countless varieties of clematis and roses? Or was it each garden’s enviable setting, complete with well-aged brick, wrought iron gates and impressive evergreens and oaks?
“It finally became clear at Kiftsgate Court when we stepped onto the grass path and took in the wondrous length and breadth of The Wide Border.”
I delved into the history of English gardens and analyzed what I’d seen. I then described and detailed five features that I thought were common to all.
• Background and Foreground • Bed Shape and Size • Plant in Drifts • Limited Use of Ornament • Feeling of Abundance
Also included is a list of plants we saw in the borders and that would (with only two exceptions) do well in our northern gardens.
My thanks to Mary Lahr Schier, editor of the magazine, for publishing the story and for her source of excellent photos that accompany it.
Veranda is among the glossiest of high-end shelter magazines. Generally their style is too lavish for my design aesthetic but I couldn’t resist the April 2012 issue. The cover declared, “Special Collector’s Issue/The Best of 25 Years.”
Some of the features were fun reading: Personal Luxuries of Diane von Furstenberg and new store designs for Restoration Hardware. There was some beautiful artwork, nice candlesticks and one fabulous burgundy sports car parked in the entry drive of a villa near Naples, Florida. My favorite room in the entire magazine was a simple but cozy bedroom in a fishing lodge in Suffolk.
Too, the editors presented their “all-time favorite gardens” from the past 25 years:
As we deliberated, an intriguing theme emerged: the spaces that consistently drew our admiration were those that incorporated architectural principles—symmetry, scale, proportion—so flawlessly that sometimes it was almost difficult to pinpoint where nature stopped and order began.
First of all, they nailed good garden design. Principles provide the underlying structure of every artistic endeavor, including landscape architecture.
Secondly, they chose a very special garden—one that epitomizes the best of artistry, design and gardening—for the play photograph of the piece.
It is Claude Monet’s garden at Giverny, France.
I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers. ~ Claude Monet
Only a real man can wear a tie with butterflies on it. ~ Doug Tallamy
Besides being entirely suitable that a famous entomologist be so attired, how can one not like the man who made this self-deprecating remark during his keynote address at a recent symposium?
Doug Tallamy is Professor and Chair of the Department of Entomology and Wildlife Ecology at the University of Delaware. He also wrote one of my favorite books, Bringing Nature Home/How Native Plants Sustain Wildlife in Our Gardens. Naturally, I couldn’t miss the opportunity to hear him in person when he appeared as part of the St. Louis Garden Blitz on March 3, 2012, at the Missouri Botanical Garden.
Tallamy has the utmost respect for plants and understands their fundamental importance. “Plants are major miracles of nature,” he said. “Plants eat sunlight,” he continued and produce huge amounts of food through the process of photosynthesis. This food is eaten by insects that in turn are eaten by other animals and so on up the food chain.
One of Tallamy's thesisses is that insects need native plants as food sources—not introduced or alien plants. “Insects can only survive with plants they share an evolutionary history,” he said.
Not a fan of the business of horticulture. Tallamy is not at all complimentary about the horticulture industry and actually blames them for some of our current issues. Rather than offering plant choices that could be an integral part of a landscape’s ecosystem, he said, “Horticulture taught that plants are decorations. Plants might as well be plastic.” He blamed the industry for some devastating diseases, including chestnut blight, and declared, “85% of the invasive plants were introduced by the horticulture industry.”
Homegrown Park. Tallamy’s idea to fix this mess is a simple one. Homeowners in the U.S. need to change the way they garden in two significant but easily doable ways. 1. Reduce amount of lawn. 2. Plant good plants.
Everyone’s garden would connect to everyone else’s and we could have a spectacular natural area of 40 million acres. His choice for a name is Homegrown Park.
Final thoughts from Tallamy. From Bringing Nature Home: …for the first time in its history, gardening has taken on a role that transcends the needs of the gardener. Like it or not, gardeners have become important players in the management of our nation’s wildlife. It is now within the power of individual gardeners to something that we all dream of doing: to ‘make a difference.’
In a more dire tone, he told the symposium attendees: We need to share the earth. If not, we’ll disappear.
Photo above by Doug Tallamy. Tallamy is an outstanding photographer and his talk was augmented with gorgeous close-ups of insects, caterpillars, butterflies, birds and plants.
Bill Cunningham is a photographer responsible for the always-clever, eye-catching photo essay “On The Street” in The New York Times each Sunday. Recently, his pictorial documented the annual spring installation of hanging nasturtiums (Tropaeolum majus) in the courtyard of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston.
The grand move of the 20’ vines—this year the flowers are a vivid scarlet—from greenhouses to balconies is an annual tradition during the week before Easter. It dates to Isabella Stewart Gardner’s time, more than 100 years ago.
The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum was conceived of by Isabella and Jack Gardner in the 1880s. They were well-to-do Bostonians who also travelled the world and bought lots of artwork along the way. Jack died before the museum’s opening in 1903 but Isabella, an extremely determined and capable woman, carried on their joint vision. The building itself, named Fenway Court, looks absolutely beautiful and provides what appears to be a stunning setting for their collection.
Isabella Stewart Gardner disliked the cold, mausoleum-like spaces of most American museums of the period. As a result, she designed Fenway Court around a central courtyard filled with flowers. Light enters the galleries from the courtyard and from exterior windows, creating an atmospheric setting for works of art. ~ from the museum's website
Another reason to admire Gardner is her love of horticulture. Her museum honors that passion not only by maintaining its many gardens but by offering educational opportunities to the public. • Gardner Museum Landscape Lectures (six each year…Michael Van Valkenburgh is sold out for April 12…or I would be tempted.) • Gardner Museum Fellowship in Landscape Studies • Ask the Gardener free chats • Landscape Tours
This is the final day of my redbud watch. The flower party is over for 2012.
Today, more than three weeks later, the flowers are mostly faded, their petals scattered by the wind. With the help of an insect—probably by some sort of long-tongued bee—those blossoms are now in the process of forming fruits.
The apical meristems have been busy, too, for what’s emerging now at the branch tips are perfectly formed, miniature heart-shaped leaves.
What a party it was. I felt it all—anticipation, excitement, exhilaration, pride.
Watching this redbud and feeling a part of its glorious flower show has been a dream come true. If I had a bucket list, I could cross one thing off.
The Help, by Kathryn Stockett, is actually the unabridged audio version which I bought for two long road trips. Every time I get in my vehicle, I’m completely transformed back to Mississippi in 1962. I become so immersed in the lives of three women and the story they struggled courageously to expose that I don’t want to stop for anything—coffee, gas or even the ladies.
Still Life, by Louise Penny, is the first in this murder mystery series featuring Armand Gamache, Chief lnspector of Homicide for the Surete du Quebec. He is sensitive but strong, intelligent, professional and doesn’t abide incompetence. Penny’s village of Three Pines and its inhabitants are wonderful creations. Plus, I want to eat at the local bistro. (See entry below.)
Armand Gamache sat on the bench, watching the birds but mostly watching the village…He sat back and did what he did best. He watched. ~ Louise Penny
The Complete Sherlock Holmes Volume 1, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Even though it shames me to admit, I’ve never read these stories, not even, as I recall, in any English classes. (I am a huge fan of Laurie R. King’s series that features an elder Holmes.) What sparked my interest, again I’m ashamed to admit, is seeing the movie with Robert Downey Jr. playing Holmes. He is perfect, I think, as the obsessive, fanatical, eccentric genius whom you can’t help but like.
Continuous Container Gardens, by Sara Begg Townsend & Roanne Robbins, is now one of several in my library about container gardens. But Townsend and Robbins have a fresh take on the genre and echo a basic garden rule of mine to garden for year round enjoyment. They present 12 container designs with specific details about altering each for spring, summer, fall and winter. I especially applaud their simple-yet stunning combinations (I’m so tired of over-wrought, over-planted containers) and plant choices. They include several designs with woody plants as the focal point. The book is loaded with useful tips and nice photographs. Finally, Townsend and Robbins have a fresh, breezy style and you just know they love what they do.
French Bistro, by Bertrand Auboyneau and Francois Simon, pays homage to my all-time favorite restaurant type. Auboyneau is the owner of the famous Paul Bert bistro in Paris and Simon is an author and food critic at Le Figaro. They teamed up to produce this stunning combination cookbook/photo essay.
A bistro without wine? It would be like…well, we’ll spare you the traditional list…Wine is a bistro’s magical ingredient… ~ Bertrand Auboyneau & Francois Simon
To me, bistros are the epitome of French simplicity and sophistication and the photographs do them proper justice. All the elements of a proper bistro are beautifully depicted: sturdy wooden tables, bistro chairs, bars of lead, zinc or well-worn wood, open shelves of crystal wine glasses and the rustic backdrop of mirrors, brick walls and chalkboards.
And I haven’t even mentioned the recipes and pictures of food. Incroyable!
My redbud is in full bloom and I’m bursting with pride.
With the exception of few flowers at the branch tips, flowers on every spur of every branch are open.
I counted 133 spurs on the 48-inch section of redbud branch that I’ve been watching. Considering there’s an average of 15 blossoms per spur (actually 10 – 20….I counted), that’s almost 2,000 flowers on my one branch.
What a splendid sight. Amongst the bare branches of neighboring trees, my redbud glows like a neon purple vision.
Askov American Birds & Blooms Kanabec County Times Lake Country Journal Northern Gardener Pine City Pioneer Pine County Courier The Ely Miner The Minnesota Horticulturist
Colors.
I’ve grown woody plants like witch hazel, basswood, lilacs, roses, mock oranges and sweet autumn clematis. I’ve grown peonies, violets and sweet peas, of course, but also, sweet woodruff, nicotiana and nasturtium for their sweet scent. And even though I love to cook, a prime reason for growing big pots of herbs—far more than I could ever use—is their fragrance. 
Only a real man can wear a tie with butterflies on it.
