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100 Miles Of Bad Road

I admit, I have down days. Those days when I am beat down- all I want to do is know what the rules are, and play by the rules. A default position.  I know better than to want this, but sometimes I am not so much interested in the fact that I know better-I just want 100 miles of good road. If you are a gardener, you understand that there is no rule book, much less a play book.  No matter the length and breadth of your passion, circumstances beyond your control or experience occur regularly.  Too much or not enough rain-that’s standard issue trouble. But for the first time ever at home, I have black vine weevils eating everything in sight; the leaves of my rhododendron, hosta, lily of the valley-even impatiens flowers.  What the lavae do to the roots of plants is far worse than all of my chewed leaves.  Incredibly, they have invaded my house; I am sure they hitch a ride with the corgis. Some garden troubles just rear their ugly heads out of no where, and pitch you into the weeds. 

Three days ago a wind from hell played havoc with every garden within my reach.  Do we regularly have high winds mid September-no.  Was I prepared for what I did not imagine could happen-of course not.  My daturas were not staked for a worst case scenario-they were nominally staked.  Am I cleaning up as best I can-of course.  Though I am I thinking I am entitled to advance warning, I am not.  My tired late summer garden is broken, and broken out with a bad case of windburn.

I have clients calling about fall plantings.  Is it fall?  We have had high daytime temperatures, and low-low, up and down temperatures at night.  There are some small signs that the season is changing-as in 2 days of high winds. But it  is anything but clear that fall has arrived.  No fall dance card is available yet.  We have a summer season hanging on. Is it fall? I see few signs of it.  No matter how many clients have the idea to move on this very minute to the next season, between summer and fall is a space.  That space might be small and of short duration, or cavernous and long. There are space between the seasons .  

Grapes have very large and very thin leaves. The vines at the shop have their biggest crop ever starting to ripen. The pergola that holds those grape vines aloft-I did the right thing from the beginning. I built a pergola sturdy and strong enough.  An arbor at a tilt from the wind, or from too vigorous a plant is not only bad looking, it is hard to fix.  An important part of landscape design and installation has to do with the worst case. I would advise that you only take on a project of a size that you can do well-really well.  Though the leaves of my grapes are parched from the wind, the pergola is intact. 

    The datura centerpieces in my driveway pots- I staked in July.  The staking was quick and general-I did not stake for the worst case  My mistake; I lost them both in this freak September wind.  My regret that I did not do what was necessary to stave off 100 miles of bad road-considerable. 

 

My butterburrs were defeated by the wind.  On my mind, seeing everything laid low by the wind, is the idea that every project undertaken with great energy and committment needs to be thought out such that any worst case natural disaster causes little harm.  Sometimes it is only a matter of tending to the last 10 percent of the project with the same energy you had for the first 10 percent. The bigger idea-anything carefully and beautifully, and well done will save you a hundred miles of bad road.  Should you plan to plant a hedge of evergreens, or a line of hydrangeas, or a rose garden, or install a path through the garden-do it right.  Choose well grown evergreens with sufficiently large rootballs.  Buy well grown roses.  Set the stones on a gravel base. Buy great quality plants; it takes the same effort to plant a great plant as a maginal one. 

 
If I had to choose, I would rather be looking at a sturdily staked datura beginning to show fall color than no datura at all.

Posted on: September 10, 2010 5 Comments
Filed Under: Landscape Design, Garden Design

Some Thoughts on Spacing

Once there is a landscape plan in place, there is the matter of the plant count.  Determining a plant count has much to do with spacing.  I have read much about rules for spacing plants properly for optimal growth, but the issue is more complex than that.  For instance, if I am planting pachysandra, and space them at a foot apart, I need one plant per square foot.  For 500 square feet, I will need 500 plants, or about 10 48 count flats.  If I space them at 6″ apart, I need 4 plants per square foot, or 2000 plants, or about 40 48 count flats.  Option A asks for a modest up front investment, but I see a lot of time ahead devoted to weeding, the purchase and spreading of a lot of mulch, and a lot of water thrown on bare ground.  I also see a grim looking space for probably 3 years.  My solution?  Start a groundcover bed small and plant densely.   Enlarge it next year, or the following season- only that number of square feet you can plant densely.  My mature, healthy beds of pachysandra-individual plants are much less than an inch apart.

Spacing evergreens has everything to do with the desired outcome.  Should I plant a taxus densiformis in the middle of the lawn, and give it 50 years to grow, I will have a single plant of considerable size.  A hedge, or a mass of yews is more about a community. Sometimes I look at the distance between the rootballs.  The big idea here-everybody has their own subterranean digs. This may mean that the foliage touches.   

Plants are much more sociable than I.  I want my space. I was never so conscious of the need for my own space than after my knee replacement.  I was less than stable on my feet, and was not interested in an enthusiastic Golden Retriever broaching my borders. But plenty of plants do well planted in close quarters.  They are completely happy to relinquish their individuality, and become a part of a larger community.

One of my most favorite landscape moments-the arrival of the plants.  These 1.5″ caliper fastigiate hornbeams in 25 gallon pots would be planted as if they were the poles of a pergola. Carpinus betulus “Frans Fontaine” is a culitvar of fastigiate hornbeam which is slower and more densely growing than the species.  Even so, it will grow 30′-35′ tall, and 15′-18′ wide. I spaced them at 8′ on center, knowing they would grow together.  Someday there would be a green roof under which there would be shade.   

I had other reasons which influenced my spacing.  The house next door loomed over this side yard property.  Evergreens would have provided year round screening, but they occupy a lot of space at the ground plane.  My clients wanted to entertain in this space.  Given enough time, and spaced close together, they would eliminate this view of the neighbor.   

Carpinus are also very tolerant of pruning.  Decisions about spacing are specific to the species in question.  The vast majority of green spaces have not been planted by a person.  There are those wild places densely populated by plants.  No natural forest or meadow is at equilibrium; some plants are coming on as others are in eclipse.  Perhaps a lighting strike will “prune” a giant tree such that new plants can take hold around it.  Should you be interested in the exceptions to any gardening rule, visit any wild and untended space. 

Five years later, the new yews have grown together to make a mass.  The topmost row of yews had been transplanted from the front of the house; the new yews will eventually cover their bare lower limbs.  It sometimes makes more sense to underplant an old and ungainly shrub rather than tear it out.  These big old yews will eventually become part of a simple mass.Eight years later, the house next door has all but disappeared. As the carpinus grow taller, they can be selectively pruned on the underside to permit easy passage beneath them. 


The yews planted behind the carpinus are planted on a gentle slope that rises to the neighboring driveway. Though the shade has become considerable, they are green and well needled from top to bottom.  Allowing those densiformis yews to keep their natural shape is in large part responsible for their continuing health.  Yews do not respond so well to hard formal pruning.  Once all light is blocked to the interior of the shrub by a proliferation of growth on the exterior, those inner branches will go bare.  I have begun planting Taxus media Moonii in place of Hicks yews, as their natural growth is much more upright and formal. 


This is a great spot to sit.

Posted on: August 31, 2010 6 Comments
Filed Under: Landscape Design, Garden Design, Woody Plants Tagged With: , ,

Green And Good Looking

Our temperatures have gone back into the 90’s, topped with a big dollop of high humidity;  I am seeing signs of summer’s end in a lot of container plantings-including my own.  Crispy stems, mildew, and all manner of other trouble one can put under the heading of late summer malaise. Green plantings seem to keep their good looks, even when the late summer doldrums look more and more like the beginning of the end. To follow are some of my favorites this year.

Lime licorice, white polka dot, and a dracaena whose name I do not know-what a fresh look for August 30.

Lemon grass, variously underplanted with basil, parsley, and strawberries. 

King Tut, lime nocotiana, variegated licorice and cream petunias

Australian tree ferns, bromeliads, boxwood, pachysandra

Agave, datura metel

Eugenia topiary, parsley

datura metel, nicotiana mutabilis, gardenia standard, cirrus dusty miller, lime licorice

variegated ivy on standard, boxwood standard

Rosemary on standard, strawberries, fiber optic grass.  It is amazing how beautiful a collection of green plants can be, whatever the weather.

Posted on: August 30, 2010 1 Comment
Filed Under: Garden Design, Good Design

The Silver Maple

A client purchased an empty lot next door to them, with the idea of completely reinventing the landscape such that two properties would read as one. Though it did not have the best looking shape in the world, there was an existing silver maple they were reluctant to take down. I understand this feeling completely; I do not like to take down trees either. I work with existing plants all the time; we would work with this one. 

Every other plant on both lots was dug and moved.  The maple was out there on its own. I did not want to design a landscape around this tree; it was in less than ideal condition.  There were views across the new lot that would be important from the rear porch; I could tell right away that the landscape design would be impacted by this tree.   I designed the schematic landscape as if it were not there, knowing that when the time came, I would be working around that tree. 

The landscape eventually called for four large perennial beds that would terminate in a radius of arborvitae.    A pergola 27 feet long set midway and perpendicular to those beds visually anchors the space.  The silver maple is just barely visible on the left; the trunk is half in, and half out of the bed.  I rather like a very formal design that is punctuated by some unexpected  element.  The element of surprise can be a very effective way to focus attention on the overall geometry of the space. 

There was but a very short time that this view would be visible.  Once the plants were installed, it would look like that tree had sprouted and grown out of an existing garden. The fact that the trunk tips slightly away from the garden lends a little visual weight to that argument.  Much more difficult than than getting this tree to work with these four quadrant gardens would be getting the perennials to work with that tree. The maple casts a good deal of shade-the shade was by no means even.  I wanted a tall and substantial garden with plant material that repeated the same mix in each quadrant.  My client wanted perennials with white, lavender and purple flowers.

The view out to the gardens is a long one. What was an empty lot is not so empty anymore. I believe that even if the maple had fallen within the grass path out to the pergola, the design would still have worked. Three multi-trunked birch that had once been in the back yard were successfully transplanted to the side lot. 

I chose plants with a reputation for tolerating varying conditions.  Hellebores I knew would do fine even in the sunnier areas. Bridal Veil Astilbe, and Astilbe Tacquettii Superba do well here.  Gold drop hosta, Jack Frost brunnera, White Innocence and Concord grape tradescantia and alchemilla mollis were planted along the border with sufficient space in between to allow for some low annual planting. The dominant plant is snakeroot-cimicifuga racemosa.  Its white bottle-brush flowers on long graceful racemes give a garden the height I was after.  Monarda fistulosa Claire Grace gives a  great show of lavender flowers at about the same time.   

The pergola was planted with sweet autumn clematis, clematis Jackmani Superba, and clematis viticella violacea. It has been a challenge to keep the rabbits away from them, but they finally seem like they are taking hold. 

I plant an occasional nicotiana alata white, here and there.  White Japanese anemone and aconitums are the star of the show in very late summer. They are just budding up now.

It has been three years since this garden was planted; it seems to be doing well.  Of course there will come a time when some division or replacing will be necessary.  The clematis are a little behind schedule-the day when they are dripping from the roof of the pergola will be a good day. 


The silver maple in question has company now.

Posted on: August 24, 2010 Leave a Comment
Filed Under: Landscape Design, Garden Design, Garden Ornament Tagged With: ,