Archives for April 2012

This past winter, and what we have seen of spring so far has been a roller coaster. Not so cold, very hot, freezing cold again-up and down.  The 2012 season so far-dicey for planting outdoors.  The below 30 degree weather-just too cold.   But at last we are planting spring containers-how I love to have my hands in the dirt again.  This oval painted tin tub planted with scabiosa, pansies and violas is fresh, and represents the new season in a cheery way.      

But not everything in the spring garden needs to be new. I have clients that plant their containers all of the four seasons.  Before you decide that such a schedule is too much work, consdier repurposing elements from one season to the next.  These cream bleached twigs and whitewashed eucalyptus winter arrangements went from the front door boxes to the back yard boxes-given spring. The blooming of the Bradford pears makes all that winter white look unexpectedly fresh.   

The winter evergreens around these centerpieces were removed.  The yellow twig dogwood, bahia stems, and lavender eucalyptus-still beautiful even after 6 months of winter.  The centerpieces transition gracefully into spring.  All that is new in these pots are some pansies and violas. Granted our winter this year was a no show, and that may account somewhat for their longevity.  Some gardeners have objections to anything in a container that is not a live plant, but I am more interested in persuading people to try gardening, and helping them succeed-so they keep gardening.    

Preserved natural materials are incredibly durable.  They can be taken apart, and reconfigured.   I have had centerpieces like this last several seasons.  A change of venue, or a new element is often enough to make what was an old idea look new.  I thought about removing the bahia stems, but in this case I like the brown.  The color seems fine, and provides another layer of interest.  Pansies and violas have trouble carrying a container arrangement in a striking way.  They need some element that is large enough to provide them some visual context.   

A wood crate planted with chard, lettuce, and orange pansies-what gardener wouldn’t fall for this? Beautiful plantings come just as easily to a repurposed container as a fancy urn.  If there is a plan to use a wood crate on a regular basis, painting the inside with a glossy exterior grade paint will improve its longevity. Galvanized pails, tin cans with great labels and potato chip tins-they can make for charming container plantings.       

Dry or bleached twigs know no particular season.  Paired with pansies and variegated ivy, they look spring like.  A stick stack such as this could stay in a container all year round-the look changes considerably given the nature of the supporting cast.  Tired of the color?  Repaint them, or stain them.

Cold tolerant early season plants include the pansies and violas, lettuce, angelina, rosemary, sweet peas, osteospermum, dwarf grasses, annual phlox, herbs such as thyme and mint, ornamental cabbages and kales, petunias and million bells-the choices are many.  But most of them have a very small scale.  These fresh cut hornbeam twigs add a little interest from the start, and will make this doorway look even more inviting as the pansies grow in.   

We preserved and repurposed the winter centerpieces for these pots outside a restaurant.  Lime sedum and coral bells-we planted lots of them.  Perennials are great in spring containers.  Columbines, Jacob’s ladder, dianthus, and hosta are among my favorites.  Spring flowering vines look great even when they have finished flowering.  Who doesn’t have a spot for a 1st year clematis in the garden, after a spring container planting fades? 

The Creme Brulee coral bells add some heat in the way of orange, and some contrast to the cool colored violas.  The lavender colored eucalyptus was startling in these pots over the winter, and perfectly appropriate to the spring planting. In commercial settings, I like to see strong color.  It does a great job of saying hello and welcome.

The chartreuse Italian cypress, or lemon cypress, is not hardy in my zone, but they are fairly obliging and easy to winter over.  A shrub this size will be 4 feet tall or better in just a few years-in which case it will make a beautiful centerpiece in a big pot of spring flowers. 

There was a time when I had no affection or interest in yellow.  This was so many years ago I cannot remember the reasons why.  When I came to my gardening senses, I realized that yellow is a good symbol for sunny.  The color reads clearly from a distance.  And it is the first cousin of the best-chartreuse.  I live in a state whose grey days are many.  Sunny colored flowers are so welcome, and mix amiably with other colors.  Yellow can leaven the visual mass of dark flowers.  I like arrangements that are airy-physically airy, as in varying heights.  And visually airy.  

The much discussed, and usually maligned forsythia-I love the coming of its sunny yellow flowers.  Do I need this shrub to satisfy everything I require from a great shrub? No.  But I am grateful for its forthright announcement that spring is in progress.  The masses of  forsythia on Forsythia Hill at Dunbarton Oaks in the spring-stunning.  Masses of yellow blooms look good to me on a spring day.  That yellow is a profusely but simply worded hello-it is spring. 

This tulip-another idea about spring yellow altogether. This double Darwin tulip, Akebono, was new to me last year.  I was not aware there were any double Darwins.  The shape is very unusual.  The tips of the petals are berry red; the anthers and bases of the petals jet black.  This yellow spring flower is as elegant as it is frilly.  The flowers are very large.  This so sunny tulip would be the inspiration for my spring garden at the shop.  

 Inspiration for a garden can come from a number of places.  A color, a season, a place remembered, a shape.  Inspiration does not necessarily imply revelation-an inspiration can be a little thing.  That particular tulip enchanted me-Enchantment is a good town in which to build a home. I chose 3 other tulips to accompany the Akebono tulips.  A cream yellow, a clear medium yellow, and an intense yellow.  They are all late tulips-only the Akebono are in bloom now.

Last night we watered the tulips thoroughly with a fine spray.  The forecasted temperature overnight-28. Well watered soil helps repel frost-as does late overhead irrigation.  Though it may seem to be the wrong thing to do, water that freezes releases heat.  The frozen water actually protects the petals themselves from a hard freeze. Tulips close up at night-sensible spring flowers, these.  The Akebono tulips took the shower in stride.  

The tulip flowers have managed to survive a pair of extremely cold nights.  Warmer days and nights will bring on the other yellow tulips

What to put in the window boxes to celebrate that inspiring tulip?  Chartreuse is a very close relative to yellow, and it is everywhere in the spring.  The maple flowers-chartreuse.  The new growth on euonymus, boxwood, taxus, privet-chartreuse.  Need I say more?  In the corners of the boxes, we ran support lines up the shutters, and planted a chartreuse leaved hops.  At the base-lettuce.  I could not tell you the variety, but I could talk all day long about the color. 

This clear lemon yellow pansy is as dramatic as the Akebono tulips, but on a much smaller scale.  Spring container plants tend to be diminutive and delicate-these flowers are giants in a world populated by violas, annual phlox, violets, hepatica, forget me nots, and trout lilies.  Pansies do have faces-smiling faces.  What gardener would refuse to smile back. (Thanks MS, for this observation-you are so right!)   

In the center of my window boxes, a pair of 2 gallon asparagus plants.  The new shoots speak to spring.  I have always had an interest in the relationship between agriculture and ornamental horticulture.  I think most landscapes have an important relationshiop with agriculture that requires addressing.  I cannot really explain this, but landscapes that arbitraily sever any connection with that history seen overwrought, self important, and lifeless.  I think my attachment to European gardens has so much to do with how the food and the flowers commingle in practical ways, and romantic ways- to make a good life. 

My good life is powered right now by the spring flowers.  Some annual, some perennial.  Some showy, some sturdy.  These whiskered picotee violas have no problem celebrating, and representing the hubbub that is spring.

My window boxes need some time, and some warm weather to grow in, and grow up.  What a pleasure- to at long last have my hands in the dirt.