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Bad Weather

 

I have been wringing my hands all week over heavy rains, wind and hail that are to be followed by 30 degrees overnight, tonight.  I have tulips already budded, Galaxy magnolias showing color and ready to pop, hellebores in full bloom-not to mention my star magnolia. As I write, those fluttery petals are drooping from the cold and wind.  A few flowers on my PJM rhododendrons are out-this is very early.  The early spring weather has been very warm- warm enough to make me nervous about the possibility of an untoward frost.  That possibility is looking really good right now.  The maples in the neighborhood just started blooming two days ago.  Those masses of tiny chartreuse flowers against a china blue spring sky-one of my favorite spring moments. What will happen?

I cannot bear to think about the just emerging, dense and soft growth on my magnificent katsura espaliers.  They have only been out of their black semi-truck box for two days, after a weeks trip from the West Coast.  How will those leaves react to freezing temperatures?  I shudder to think. I cannot do a thing about those katsuras, but I can move as much else as possible into the garage.  Nature invariably plays hardball with serious gardeners.  We people seem to think our extenuating circumstances should count for something, and mitigate the natural course of events.  I have had clients who think the weather does not apply to them or their gardens.  Sometimes I have to gently remind them sometimes that no one has made me President of the weather.  Nature is all about variability; many plants have built in mechanisms to deal with that big fluid situation.  Some seeds will not germinate, unless there has been a burn.  Some trees have enough stored energy to re-leaf, given an epic disaster. But a hard freeze to new soft growth-this can be unforgiving.

Weather disasters are tough to take-my star magnolia only blooms once every twelve months; I am watching it fade before its time.  The wet weather last summer wrecked tomato harvests for many gardeners. Though I am not a vegetable gardener, I was sympathetic.  I am intimately acquainted with the sheer exasperation which comes from not being in charge of the weather.  I can plan all I want, but being ready to endure what is not part of your best laid plans is a given, should you garden.

Plants are covered with moisture overnight. Frost protection is an effort to keep the moisture on the surface of leaves or buds from freezing.  Covering plants before the end of the day helps trap heat-and help keep that moisture liquid. Should that moisture on plant leaves or buds freeze, it will reduce the tissue to black mush; every gardener knows what frost damage looks like.  That mush look is chasing me-we spent the day hauling plants inside.  Very hard frosts can freeze leaf cells; this damage is the worst.

The greenhouse room is stuffed; just about every square inch is loaded with spring plants.  I should be happy I have indoor space. After I move past the be grateful thought,  I wish I could float frost cover over my gardening world. As that wish is not about to be fulfilled anytime soon, I can only hope for the best.   

Lots of spring plants are very cold hardy.  But once they have become accustomed to warmer weather, and push new soft growth, they are vulnerable to precipitous temperature drops. Gardeners who germinate plants from seeds indoors are bound to the ritual of hardening off.  Shocking plants with any abrupt change can make them very mad-or kill them.  Though you might think nature invented fall for the great visuals, a long and slow fall cooling period prepares plants for the deep freeze. Should summer ever turn on a dime into winter, there would be terrible losses.  The transitional weather we call fall and spring can be brutal for plants and gardeners. 


These early mini daffodils closed up shop in last night’s 32 degrees.  My crocus came and went so fast, I wondered if I had imagined them blooming.  I will not sleep so good, but I will get up and keep gardening.

Posted on: April 9, 2010 Leave a Comment
Filed Under: Garden Design, Spring Tagged With: ,

Budding

I am writing this Friday post late Saturday afternoon; sorry, it has been a busy week.  The warm weather has brought in  friends and clients -for a spring hello, and for spring work.  I am so glad to be back to work designing. Every project has its own 3″ by 5″ card-they go on my bulletin board wall.  This way, I can see everything I have going on at a glance. I get messages; “please put me on the board for….” -I like this. Green cards for design.  Blue cards for design going into the build phase.  Lavender cards for spring plantings.  Pink cards for summer plantings.  Yellow cards for parties and events. This may seen archaic to most, but it works great for me.   Having a stack of design and build cards-each design project benefits the other.  Design is very much about rhythm and regular engagement, and I am engaged on a number of fronts.  Everything is budding-I am sure you have noticed, as I have.     

This green flowered primula “Francisca” was discovered by Francicsa Dart on a traffic island in Canada in 1995. Green flowers look good for a long time-as their petals photosynthesize just like leaves-the info from the new issue of “Gardens Illustrated”.   Many older green flowered primroses have been propagated too long, with attendant viruses that weaken them. This primula is an exception- remarkable for its robust growth.  Budding is about anticipation, and expectation; people and plants share this come spring. This late wait- just one of a list of rewarding things a gardener has to look forward to.  This late winter wait is a vast improvement over the post holiday wait-I’ll take it.

The forsythia in the outlot has budded and swelled in the twinkling of an eye; this is its habit.  The recent night temps in the twenties has not damaged the emerging flowers, but it has thrown them into a cryogenic state of inanimation.  I am sure this terminology would make any biologist laugh-but whatever.  These buds are at a standstill. If I cut and brought these branches inside, they would pop overnight.  Watching them move ahead, and then screech to a halt outdoors-a good lesson about how good timing helps any new venture.

My hellebores have sent up buds very cautiously-there is something in the hellebore internal clock which hedges the bloom time bet. How plants interact with weather is incredibly interesting, and beautifully complicated.  No stalks will push these buds skyward until conditions seem optimal.  After all, the purpose of the flower is to make itself available for pollination, set seed, and thus insure the survival of the species. An inauspicious start out of the box doesn’t speak well for a good finish. That those flowers thoroughly enchant me; I am sure nature is rolling her eyes.  Make what she will of my naivete, I like the enchanting part of spring blooming.    

I am so fond of willows-in any and every form.  Their most amazing moves come right about now.  Their branches tell you when the spring sap is rising-branches dulled and browned by winter come alive-before the leaves bud.  Willow tree branches will go intensely yellow green, and glow, in early spring.  These trees light up, when the season turns-like no other plant.  This is a gift to the garden.

My rhododendron flower buds have been in place since last season. All winter they impassively withstood every insult the Michigan winter had to serve up. They are still tight and tightly closed.  It is much too cold for opening day. A few 60 degree days does not impress them-they need to be sure winter has let go-before they let go.   

No one could fault Rob for lacking a sense of humor.  These budding bulbs are made of wax, and have wicks.  Planting them in wood trays and candle holders in natural and preserved moss; this represents a wickedly funny hope for budding.  I have seen a lot of second takes at the shop this week.  This budding out is all about how just about everyone is searching for any sign that the winter is over. Some have succumbed-and taken them home for spring dinner parties; our warm weather is dicey at best, until June 15.

On every gardener’s mind- is it time?

Posted on: March 27, 2010 6 Comments
Filed Under: Detroit Garden Works, Landscape Design, Spring Tagged With: , ,

Sunday Opinion:The Romance Of Possibility

The very same Louise Beebe Wilder whose book on rock gardening (Pleasures and Problems Of A Rock Garden) I mentioned in last Sunday’s post, also penned several lines about gardening that are among my most favorite.  “In her own garden, every woman may be her own artist without apology or explanation.  Here is one spot where each may experience the romance of possibility”.  No wonder it is so often quoted by gardeners and garden writers alike.  “The romance of possibility”  so succinctly describes the source of that compulsion which makes every gardener put a shovel to soil-again and again-season after season.  I suppose there are those people who have gardened, and walked away, but I do not know them personally. I do know some for whom indulging that shot at romance is on hiatus. A new child, an imminent move, an illness-these big things can tie one’s gardening hands.  I myself am shuddering at the thought that this year I must see to a new roof.  Worse than the expense, the thought of the damage threatening my garden -I don’t know how I will cope.   I can save ahead for the roof,  but I despise the idea of regrowing or replacing my roses, or some boxwood crushed by the three layers of shingles that have to come off and down.  But as I see dealing with this come November, and today is the first day of spring, I choose to think about the possibilities.

Some possibilities involve an investment of time and imagination, and not so much money.  My blocks of limelight hydrangeas were almost seven feet tall when they bloomed last summer.  I barely trimmed them last March; I wanted the height. In August I could see the mass of flowers towering over my yew hedge. It is possible for me to cut them harder, and keep them lower-what would this do?  I prune one client’s hydrangeas to 20 inches tall out of the ground-her  four foot plus plants do not obstruct her view of the lake.  My hydrangeas span a considerable drop in grade; could I prune such that the eventual height of each block will be the same?  Would they be better, two feet shorter?  Would I like to give this a try?

For the past 5 years, I have been pruning a pair of palibin lilacs on standard rather hard after they bloom.  The heads have gotten so large, they are always on the verge of out of bounds.  It has taken every bit of five years to change their shape from a giant ball to lower and wider ovals.  This shape I like better. But those ovals are not uniform all the way around-have I the nerve to pollard them? Pollarding a tree heads back all of its branches breathtakingly close to the primary trunk.  Though I love the look of pollarded trees in European cities and gardens, I am a little faint of heart, subjecting two of my own to this treatment.  They never seem to mind how hard I prune-they flush out again without any complaint.  It is a possibility on my mind, pollarding the lilacs.  In my own garden, pollarded trees like I see in books about European gardens-it would no doubt be a romantic experience.

Though our winter has been very mild this year, my Helleborus Angustifolius survived the mild winter with very little damage-but their giant stems were flattened by the weight of the snow.  As they bloom on last year’s growth, I cannot cut them back.  Shall I trade them in for some orientalis cultivar whose tattered leaves can be pruned off in March, as the flowers push forth from the soil on their own fresh stems?  I have quite a few years invested in these giant hellebores, but they really do not like this climate. Should I decide to cut my losses, is there something else that would compliment my beech ferns even better?

All of the elements of my fountain garden seem to be working well, and growing fine.  But something seems to be missing-what is it?  Do I need a new fence?  Should I stain my old fence black?  Does my fountain need something?  If so, what?  This has to be the most exciting part of the first day of a Michigan spring-what are my possibilities?  As I am only thinking things over, I can let my imagination run wild. My imagination gets a little frayed come September, but a long winter has set me to longing to be out of doors, tinkering.    

Other years, my spring has been much more about repairing winter damage than romance.   One winter, ice and snow brought an entire hedge of 14 foot tall arborvitaes to its knees.  The only possibility at my disposal-have it tied back up, look after it, and hope for the best.  This was three years ago; perhaps this year it will look its old glorious self again. Splayed out and winter burned boxwood took its share of time and effort, as did the cleanup of wind and ice damaged trees.  My spring plans-dashed.   

This winter though, has been very grey, very long, and quite benign. A little romance seems to be right around the corner.

Posted on: March 21, 2010 5 Comments
Filed Under: Strictly Opinion, Spring Tagged With: ,

Putting Together A Collection

Creating and arranging a collection is a passion known to many, not just gardeners.  Even the most hard line minimalist collects their empty spaces as if empty spaces were on the endangered list; yes?  Gardeners collect seeds, tools, hellebore cultivars, rocks, birdfeeders, trees-you get the idea.  I have amassed a collection of books in the past 25 years that must number over a thousand volumes by now. It is a long standing coherent collection documenting my adventures as a gardener. Putting together and arranging a coherent collection for my shop is a big part of being able to advise people about how to design their gardens. 

Every year’s collection for Detroit Garden Works is different.  It might be based on one particular object whose size, surface, shape or style or aura proves to be a magnet for Rob’s attention.  Alternately, his  basis for a collection might be triggered by a place he has visited or an idea that’s surfacing.  We made a conscious effort to shop the US for antique, vintage and new things a few years ago.  Thus the collection always has a strong American element. An organizing metaphor-we like these. His point of view about what is beautiful is a catalyst for a constellation of pots, sculpture, prints, garden furnishings, fountains-any object which might evoke a little magic for a garden.   


These clay cylinders are all about what Rob calls a chamaeleon surface. In addition to their gritty texture, the color changes given the light.  After last night’s rain, the color was saturated and rich-different than their dry color.  Mineral surfaces exploring color and texture such as this will be friendly to no end of different kinds of plants. Pots of simple shapes makes the color and texture the most important element.  These pots will take on the atmosphere of its placement, and plants, and play a serious supporting role in big visual scheme of things.  

These rectangles made from thin slabs of volcanic rock are close in color, shape and size to these oval galvanized tubs.  Their differences give the eye a workout.  I am seeing his idea become tangible.   A collection of objects of simple and varied shapes distinguished by their interesting surfaces are what I would call a visual variation on a theme.    

A pair of very old and fine American urns and pedestals dating from the early twentieth century focuses my attention on their shape and surface-and away from a historical label.  In another context, I would see them as very traditional American garden ornament.  In Rob’s context, kept company by a family I would not have imagined, I am looking at them in a different way.  The impossibly wide and low shape of the urns, the simple swirls indented in the pedestals-I am thinking about the universality of beautiful objects for gardens-never mind their age, period, or label.     

Volcanic rock in its natural state-this I am used to seeing.  Volcanic rock slices are a product of modern technology.  I have not seen this before.  The intersection of ancient materials transformed by modern technology-Rob has gotten my interest. This I admire about him so much; he posits lots of questions to whomever might be interested- without fanfare.  He assumes that gardeners are a group in touch with the physical world, and provides them beautiful choices.  Alternative choices.  

This Austin and Sealey sculpture from  19th century England was minutes from being moved as I took this picture. I liked the old hand carved stone backed up by a contemporary Belgian elm barrel-why would I go there?  I am looking at shapes and surfaces without regard to the sentiment of a given period-many thanks to Rob.  It is the best of what I have to offer as a designer-a gardeners point of view, without any predicatable baggage.

A major reconfiguration of the shop is a major effort.  We do this every spring.  Spaces get emptied, cleaned-raked and ready to redo and live new- a dream come true.  Every new gardening season warrants new thinking-we try to oblige. The driveway is congested with things from this show or that, that source or this vintage shop in Virginia-if you have an interest in how Rob spent his winter, come and look around.


I do not have to do that much work to figure out where Rob is going; not really.  No one could possibly love their I-phone as much as he does. The internet/photo capability of that phone has set him free.   I get indundated by the photographs he takes-everywhere he goes.  client’s homes.  trips.  vacations-ok, busman’s holidays.  buying expeditions.  random thoughts. By the time the winter is coming to a close, I have a huge photographic record of his collecting.  He prints and posts the pictures he has sent me on a big wall in the workroom.  I have advance warning.  But this does not truly prepare me for what gets unloaded here in the spring .  The evidence and impact of his collecting-it will take me a season to absorb.

Posted on: March 12, 2010 2 Comments
Filed Under: Spring, Garden Ornament, Detroit Garden Works, Good Design Tagged With: , ,