Back To The Future
Our weather is being momumentally reluctant to shift into spring. Yes, I still have snow and ice in my yard. But there are a few signs of spring afoot. Bogie Lake Greenhouse transported me back to the future; the pansy house is bursting with spring color. They are plenty big enough to go outside, pending some warmer night temperatures. I do so associate pansies and violas with spring. I do not mind violets in the lawn. I like Johnny Jump Ups almost anywhere. Plants that self sow can be a nuisance, but these plants are charming. I know of no other flower which is commonly referred to as having a face. This refers to the prominent dark blotch on the petals of some varieties. This house is the closest thing I have to spring right now.
The clear sky series of pansies have no face, but I treasure them nonetheless. They also are particularly hardy in my zone. The tolerate a fall planting over tulips or other spring bulbs, and come back fairly reliably. This faceless pansy does have a name-primrose. Perfect.
Clear sky yellow pansies are plainly visible from a long ways away. This intense yellow makes it a perfect companion to other colors. Yellow and primrose and dark purple make for a lively mix. I like mixes for home plantings-they seem so much more personal. In contemporary gardens, I like one idea, expressing confidently in a beautiful shape or sweep. For a mix that reads evenly, use at least 3 colors.
This pansy is a member of a mix; the seed produces a range of colors that are related. My knowledge of plant breeding is nothing to speak of, but I do understand the concept of selection. Breeding for a specific characteristic means selecting those plants that most closely resemble the ideal, and breeding on. I may select certain colors from a mix to further refine an idea or a look.
Mark kindly allocated some bench space to some spring pots of mine. The selection of the plant material proved daunting, as nothing was in bloom. I have firmly resolved to take notes on varieties and combintions I like when the plants are in bloom. But a good deal of the fun of the planting-besides getting one’s hands in the dirt-is arranging for beautiful color. However, planting containers with green plants has advantages. A focus on the contrast of texture, mass and shape can make for spring containers all the more beautiful.
All of the contrast here is about color. The plants are all pansies that have the same habit of growth, the same leaves, and the same flower shape.
There are plenty of plants that tolerate our cool spring. One of my favorites is phlox intensia-annual phlox. Pictured here is the white, and the pink bicolor. There is a lovely lavender variety as well. It has a lax habit of growth that can be supported by the stiff growth of parsley, angelina, or pansies. It will still be growing strong later in the summer. I am thinking I will start planting out this next Monday, April 4. Bring on the lettuce, the parsley, the fennel, the pansies, violas and osteos-the list is long enough to keep me really busy. Hopefully there will be every opportunity to do something new, break all the rules, and go out on a limb. There usually is.
Posted on: March 31, 2011 Leave a Comment
Bare Branches
March in Michigan is as much about bare branches as November in Michigan. This makes me sympathetic to any local gardener who thinks that bare branches are a synonym for dead branches. No wonder people in my zone so value evergreens. I am really tired of looking at them; this is March 25th for pete’s sake. Every day, it is still winter. This is part of why I am so interested in espaliers as landscape plants-they look great in that leafless stage. The past few rainy days have been accompanied by temperatures near freezing. Every branch is glazed with ice.
This morning it was very sunny and cold; the bare branches were glittering. Rain drops froze before they dripped off the branches-what I would not give for this look at the holidays. Weather has a way to drawing attention to the color, structure and overall shape of those bare branches. In addition to their leaves, flowers and possibly fruit, woody plants have beautiful bones. Actually, most woody plants in their leafless stage are still beautiful.
I do not grow forsythia in my garden. I have only planted it on very large properties with room to spare. The only truly beautiful planting of forsythia I have ever seen is the Forsythia Dell at Dunbarton Oaks. Should you be there at the right time, it is spectacular. But the forsythia across the street from me were very good looking today. You can tell they are about to burst into bloom; the cinnamon color of the stems is glowing. Covered in ice, it looked good enough to eat.
Lindens have a robust overall shape, but the branches are weepy, drapy, and languid. Interesting this, for a tree that has a round overall shape. The bare branches have a jewel like appearance today. Not that I wouldn’t prefer to be smelling the flowers right now, but this is all I have available.
Crabapple branches are hunky and gnarly; the color is a bright red brown. The sun and ice brought all of that to life. It is incredible to think that in a few short weeks this branch will be floating in a pale pink tutu.
I moved all of the potted bulbs inside yesterday-the frosting of ice and all. It was 19 degrees last night-17 is forecast for tonight. 24 hours these pots have been in the garage-they are still icy. How is your spring coming along?
Posted on: March 24, 2011 2 Comments
Planting In March
I know I made much this past week about planting a more beautifully designed hanging basket. The challenge was such, I have the troubled dreams to prove it. All of the notes I made this past summer inexplicably disappeared. The lesson here-any idea, phrase, phone number, concept or design that you really need-write it down, and insure its safekeeping. Notes and notebooks, scrapbooks, file folders, magazine clippings-all of these are a good idea. Some ideas occur way ahead of their time. Keeping them written down, visually documented, and readily available is the best backup to insure that what is close to you heart gets a hearing when the time is right. Well, the time isn’t really right yet, but I was ready anyway.
I wanted to be past the dreams stage. It was time to put my show on the road. I drove out to Bogie Lake Greenhouse yesterday with Pam, and some containers in tow. I had an idea to plant some 50 containers for spring, in addition to the hanging baskets of my dreams. Ambitious, yes. But the big fact of the matter is, as Coach John Wooden once said, “It’s what you learn after you know it all that counts.” My big ideas got a dressing down. I am used to planting at the shop; I have already sorted through everything that Mark has available, and have at hand the plants that strike my fancy. This is a highly edited version of his greenhouse. Many of them are in color by the time I get them-I rarely buy plants from a list-I buy what I see, and like. Pam got right to work-she had all of the containers filled in no time. I was cruising the greenhouse with Mark, when reality began to sink in.
Spring plants in mid March are tiny green blobs-a few roots, and not much leaf to speak of on top. I faced an ocean of violas and pansies-all green. They are just where they need to be, perfectly timed-to be perfect in a month. I don’t know about you, but great color combinations in spring pots can be tough to achieve. The blues, lavenders, violets and red violets in pansies don’t always go together. Red violet pansies look great with red ornamental kale-dark purple pansies go blah. It became apparent that I would need to rely on my memory of color, my memory of the colors in the various mixes-or the notes that I could not find. If I was thinking I would have mature plants in color from which I could design-I thought wrong.
You can see from this picture that all of the purple in question has a decidedly red-violet cast. Do I know the names of these pansy and viola cultivars-no. Even when I did manage to match a cultivar name to a picture in a seed catalogue, I did not feel one bit better. Color pictures in a catalogue may give a feeling for a color-or not.
The purple is this bicolor pansy is not at all red violet. It has a heliotrope blue cast, to my eye. Red-violet alyssum in this pot would make me wince. Citron alyssum, which has a decidedly cream yellow cast, would have worked better than the white alyssum you see here.
So I did what I could-all of the schemes came from my head and memory. Pam planted pairs of pots with a variety of spring annuals including pansies, violas, phlox, angelina, osterospermums and so on-and we’ll find out later if I can design in the dark. I didn’t even approach the hanging basket planting project-I see I have to plan them on paper. The time to plan combinations is at the height of the season-when color, texture and mature size is all right there to be seen.
I have new resolve to photograph all of the flower cultivars I like to use-from the start of the season to the close. I will have then a catalogue of my own making, so I can plant green, if need me. We’ll see how far I get with that.
Though these baskets are lush and well-grown, I have something different in mind. To that end, I’ll spend some time planning, before I plant.
Posted on: March 9, 2011 2 Comments