You are here: Home / Archives for the garden

Do It Now


I usually write about hydrangeas in the late summer, when they are gracing most every garden in my zone with their armloads of marvelously frothy flowers. Ha. Hopefully that written description sounds just as extravagant as they appear in full bloom. This shrub, and all of its many iterations and cultivars, energizes and endows our late season landscape with an unparalleled and succinct representation of summer. Who doesn’t swoon over hydrangeas in bloom? I do. Each properly placed and well grown shrub is covered in flowers for weeks at summer’s end. It is indeed the super nova stage of the summer landscape. A brass band playing loudly in perfectly brassy unison, if you will. Hydrangeas representing in all their glory define what it means to be robust. They are so willing, and eminently worth cultivating. They give so much more than they need or demand. They are not wall flowers, or delicate ephemerals, or  gracefully weedy perennials-nor are they on that tough to grow list. They are like a freight train pulling in to the station with steam billowing up from the tracks and a horn blaring. Are you ready? If the leaf buds have broken dormancy and are swollen all along the stems of the shrubs  – and if those swelling buds are greening up  – it is time to prune.

Let me get what not to do out of the way first. My opinion on the matter is all I have to offer. Do not prune in the fall. Pruning is a call to grow.  Encouraging a shrub that is facing the winter to get up and grow is just not a good idea. Your best move is to encourage the long sleep. Movement towards winter dormancy in woody plants starts in my zone in August.  Once the leaves turn color, mature, and drop, leave all of the rest of the shrub intact. The most important thing to do to hydrangeas in the fall is nothing. Do not cut the flower heads off.  They look lovely with snow on them, and they wave in the winter winds. That cinnamon brown color is beautiful with evergreens. If you must remove the flower heads, OK, but do not cut these shrubs down to the ground in the fall.  That will force them to sprout from below ground in the spring. Be merciful. Leave at least 3 or 4 buds above ground when you prune-in the spring. If you are growing big leaf hydrangeas-as in hydrangeas that bloom on the previous year’s wood/growth, do not prune in the fall or the spring. Prune them promptly and only after they finish blooming. If you don’t know which type of hydrangeas you are growing, find out before you prune.

Hydrangeas do not respond very well to a formal shearing. Few plants do. Shearing hydrangeas  encourages multiple breaks below the cut, which result in a dense thicket of stems and leaves at the top. The bottom half of the shrub gets shaded.  I am amazed at how many hydrangeas I see pruned like this, but it is not good for the health of the plant, or the flowers.  I give my hydrangeas a shag haircut, keeping the stems at the top shorter and the stems nearer the bottom longer. The idea is to provide a sunny and airy space for each branch to live free. You can see this arrangement in the location of the flower heads in the photo above. Each branch has its own address.

What might not be so obvious is that these last 2 pictures show two different types in hydrangeas.  On the far left and far right of a center block of Limelight hydrangeas, as in Hydrangea paniculata “Limelight”, are rows of Incrediballs – Hydrangea arborescens “Incrediball.   They add flowers at a lower level, and they bloom earlier than Limelight. Their upright plant habit and carriage is vastly superior to their predecessor, the storied “Annabelle”.  You can see the Incrediball flowers are fairly round, and the Limelights are broadly cone shaped.  A certain amount of legginess is inevitable with Limelight. That mess of twigs is what you get over the winter with them. The Incrediballs help cover up those bare legs. These cultivars have different parentage, but they are pruned the same way.  They bloom on new growth. On what will be the current years growth.

So if it’s not appropriate to prune hydrangeas by shearing, what is the purpose of setting stakes and string? My yard, where these photographs were taken, slopes dramatically from one end to the other. The blocks of hydrangeas are a good distance apart. I would want those blocks to loosely resemble one another. The only way to tell if they approximately occupy the same spot in the landscape composition on both the north and south is to set up a level line. It’s easy to do with a bamboo stake or metal fence post, and a ball of spring. A tiny level can be clipped on to the string.

Pruning by eye can be incredibly inaccurate. I see a lot of that too. Pruning that matches uneven terrain, or follows a sloping driveway. Or pruning just to prune, with no thought to the horizon. I see that too. Sometimes it is hard to believe a level attached to a string line is accurate, but it is. I would never trust my eye to see a level line for pruning. It is terrible to wade through a big pruning project only to discover your vision for them is lopsided. And what is required to set it to right is not possible until the mistake grows out. I shudder to think of that. Happily most plants are very tolerant of off the cuff pruning. The recovery just takes time.

My level line set up is an approximation of the horizon. In the ballpark, as it were, or within shouting distance. It is not exact. It does not represent or enforce a rule. Nor does it rule the pruning process. It provides orientation. As in up and down, and left and right. It provides a framework from which to work. Taking the time to set up 2 poles and a level line is a way to walk away from the the noise of the day, and study on this first foray into the new garden season. It is a way to get ready for the job at hand. But in spite of all this, should you decide to prune your hydrangeas from the hip, Mother Nature will treat you just the same as any other gardener. Indifferently. But indeed you will notice the difference.

The pruning of my hydrangeas is underway.

Posted on: March 28, 2025 18 Comments
Filed Under: the garden, flowers, garden maintenance, Woody Plants, Seasonal Tagged With: , , , ,

Let It Be

As much as a landscape and garden evolves over time, the same could be said for a gardener. Those of us who garden probably don’t give much time to that thought, as the process can take years and really never ends.  No one becomes a gardener overnight. Just like a landscape does not come in to its own for years. I was in my twenties when I first started gardening seriously, so my process was governed by an intense curiosity tempered by ignorance. Trial by error – and more error than not. And then there was the issue of restricted funds. A sympathetic Mom bought loads of plants for me. She was never critical of my failures. Like most Mom’s, she was generous with her knowledge and support. She only wanted me to keep gardening. I had so much more energy than experience. So I threw myself at all of it like I had 10 minutes to live.


I would move plants around 3 or 4 times until I was sure they were in the right place. And maybe again for good measure. Even then, I fretted. I watered, all the while worrying that I hadn’t watered correctly. I would quit with the water for a while and then start up again. I poured over catalogues of companies that sold seeds and starts – and then agonized over which and what to buy. I bought too much. I visited every nursery I could within hundreds of miles. I could barely keep my eyes on the road for looking at the trees. I pulled the weeds and turned the soil. There were soil tests, amendments and additives to be considered. There was mulching and feeding. I edged, dead headed, divided, pruned and paced from one end of the landscape to the other.  Had my plants been able to talk they surely would have protested.  I never let or left them alone. I told myself that all that tinkering was a way of learning. Luckily, plants are very tolerant of glad handling, and can survive all but the most egregious missteps. I killed plenty of plants, and continue to do so to this day. But I garden differently now.


These photographs depict my driveway, and the landscape that has grown up around it. 25 years ago, the drive was surrounded by grass. I like grass, but I better liked looking at plants going and coming home from work. A driveway garden is an important garden, as the gardener is there almost every day. And sometimes multiple times a day. So I planted and maintained every bit of it for years. The pruning and was important, as the drive had to accommodate a vehicle coming in and going out. It would not do to have a magnolia branch scraping across the windshield. The drive surface has to be shoveled and the sticks picked up.

This small drive court was too prominent a spot to not plant up, so I did. As much as I dared. I did on occasion get called out for letting things get out of bounds. Heaven forbid any dirt or dead leaves would stick to his car. He was not a gardener. I kept the landscape on the perimeters.  This was Buck’s driveway and parking place, and I respected that. He passed on five years ago, so there was no longer any need to prune, trim, rake,  shovel, dead head and spit polish. So I have let it be. I let it all be what it wants to be now. I have not and do not intervene or maintain unless there is a dead branch or leaves to sweep up. I don’t inspect it anymore. I glance at it. Or make a trip down the driveway which is now a walking path. I don’t shovel the snow here.

winter pots

See what I mean?

The fountain landscape and garden had been planted every bit as densely as the driveway, but the time came when it had to be redone. The new group of trees – a vase shaped cultivar of tulip tree called “Emerald City” – was planted as a grove, and not in a row on the property perimeter. The sunny spots left over were carpeted in grass. The shady spots were planted with a grassy and vigorously growing perennial liriope spicata. A collection of black Belgian stoneware stools are sprinkled throughout the space.  The cedar fence was stained black, and the tree trunks were whitewashed with watered down latex house paint.

The liriope protects the tree bark from the mower. That protection does not require any maintenance. Should the liriope spread into the surrounding grass, the mower will slow it down. Grass invaded by liriope is fine by me. I am willing to let it happen, and give the natural course of events a chance. I have not decided yet what will happen as the trees grow and cast more shade. More liriope? Take note that this plant will spread with abandon, so if you have to have your hands on your garden, this plant is not for you.

The grass and liriope mix around the tree trunks-and the stools. Though there is not much too this, I find it supplies what I need from my garden now. It could be it is my most favorite garden ever. I am always glad to get home from work and go here. I pick a spot to sit.

This raised bed dating back decades is all liriope now. The stone captures it, and keeps it from spreading. I would not at all be surprised one day to see it growing through the stone.  That will be fine too.


It was not easy to get my crew to do a casually messy job of mowing the grass.  They wanted it mowed shorter. And edged. I said no.  I don’t garden like that anymore.

Posted on: March 7, 2025 60 Comments
Filed Under: garden maintenance, nature, the garden, Plants, Good Design, Landscape Design

From Nothing To Something

March is invariably the most desolate month of all in my garden. Everything sits in stony silence. The passing of the snow reveals a landscape sullen from months of cold. The straw colored grass is thin. Muddy dirt pools in those places where the grass succumbed. The stoic evergreens that have been unable to absorb water all winter long via their roots sport foliage that is still that wintry shade of black green. They will hide the damage wrought by desiccating winter winds until the air temperatures warm up. The trees are budded, but tightly budded. It is not time yet for the signs of spring to emerge. It is the time of the revelation of the effects of the winter season.  There are those who think the landscape and garden sleeps beneath a thick blanket of snow. Not so. The winter is actually a pitched battle for survival with winners, losers, and the compromised.

It is dry enough to walk the garden now. Everywhere, the remains of what is dead, shed and scuffed up is on display. The reveal of the landscape post the worst of the winter, come March, is a rude one. Wince-worthy. The rabbits chewed every rose right down to the ground. Of course they did. A fledgling paeonia Ostii was similarly chewed, despite being surrounded with bamboo stakes. Every wispy dried up bit of organic trash has been blown around and deposited somewhere in the yard – both high and low. . The pachysandra is laid over and down, as if it had been trampled by a lawn roller. There is a winter’s worth of street trash to pick up.

Desolation is the landscape word of this March day. It is hard to imagine that anything will ever be different. It is more difficult to imagine the garden thriving. I am a working gardener, in the most literal sense of the word. I respond to what nature provides. I am not in charge, nor am I the least bit unhappy about that roll. But March in my zone is dreary indeed.

I would not be capable of planning, orchestrating or even entirely comprehending that complex mechanism by which the winter season comes to an end. My knowledge of the process is certainly better than it was 50 years ago, but I am routinely taken by surprise. What we call the force of nature is just that. Formidable, inexplicable – magical. I know that in a month’s time, this view will have taken on an entirely different appearance than what I see now. What is skeletal now will have a more juicy and lively look.

I feel confident in saying that every gardener endures the winter as best they can. The read, and order seeds, and plan for the gardening season to come. They clean tools, look out the windows, and wait. I suspect they are as frazzled as I, forced to be an unwilling witness to the last gasp of winter. But as unpleasant as March can be, there is the sure knowledge the winter season will run out of steam, and fizzle. And then there will be signs of spring. Though we have had very moderate temperatures the past few weeks, there is a forecast for night temperatures in the twenties the next few nights. March and April are known for their tantrums. But the bigger picture calls for an end to winter. As it has been my experience that spring always arrives, sooner or later.

The first call in my yard is always adonis amurensis. It is astonishing how early this perennial emerges, grows and blooms-in one fell swoop.

It is painfully slow to multiply for me, but I would not do without it. They demand nothing in the way of care.  Shortly after blooming, they go dormant until the following late winter. I have time to watch and marvel how it emerges weeks ahead of other plants. That yellow flower beats back the late winter blues.

The snowdrops are a late winter favorite. Beloved in all of its forms and hybrids by galanthophiles and informal fans all over the globe, they breach the soil still crusty with frost, and bloom profusely. True to their name, they shrug off a late snow as if that were nothing. They transplant most readily in their green form. Once happy, they multiply and seed with abandon.  Any gardener who reads here knows I am a fan of hellebores. They are, in my opinion, the perfect perennial.  Thick glossy foliage persists in its green state until late in the winter. The flowers emerge on leafless stalks in April, and bloom for a very long time. The green remains of the flowers can persist in the garden well in to June. The current years leaves will emerge after the flowers.  With proper moisture, these 18″ tall plants grow into very large clumps. They live for decades, and do not require dividing to bloom profusely.  I leave the flower heads be, in order to encourage seedlings.

The flowering stalks emerge early from the clusters of last years leaves. They are a welcome sign that spring is on the way.

It will not be that long before the hellebores reach this height and breadth. The time will come when every gardener will be fully engaged in spring, and the memory of the March landscape will fade.

There will be plenty to enjoy indoors-pots of bulbs, and the cut stems of spring flowering perennials and flowering shrub branches while the weather outdoors is still uncomfortably cold.

As delicate as the flowers of Barnhaven primrose are, they are quite robust and hardy in Michigan gardens.

Grape hyacinths blooming in the early patchy grass make the inevitable dandelions look great.

This spring window box from years ago-full of daffodils, parsley, annual phlox, alyssum and violas-is a reminder that as always, spring will have its turn

It’s coming.

 

Posted on: March 21, 2020 39 Comments
Filed Under: the garden, Deborah Silver and Co Inc, Detroit Garden Works, Spring

Fall Planting

If you garden in southeastern Michigan, your garden is drenched. We have had the kind of steady hard rain spanning a good many days that I call mushroom rain. I see them popping up everywhere. I am not complaining. We have had a very dry summer, and a hot and dry early fall. The cabbage and kale at the shop have needed daily water. My pots at home needed water just about that often. I have worried about the dogwoods that need water in September to set good buds for the following spring, and the evergreens that need to be water loaded and juicy before the ground freezes. I know from my large tree contractor that our ground is dust dry, down deep. The trees he has been digging with a large tree mover have dry rootballs. This has made me very uneasy about what a very cold and windy winter might mean to a plant that has not had sufficient water during the growing season. Few perennials, shrubs or trees are prepared for the winter having gone through the summer and fall bone dry. But for those few plants that rely on dryer winter conditions for survival – though I am sure there are plenty, I am thinking some species of iris, and lavender that do not tolerate wet winter conditions –  most plants like a little stored water and nutrients before they have to face the winter. Perennials whose tops die back to the ground in the fall still have a robust and juicy root system that sustains them through the winter. Deciduous shrubs shed their leaves in the fall-yes.  But their living stems will need to survive all the harsh conditions that a winter has to dish out, and enough stored energy left over to leaf out in the spring.

The dormant/winter season for plants is nothing like my winter sleep. My blankets and a dose of house heat keeps me warm. Nothing about me or around me freezes. A usual night’s sleep is 8 hours or so. A temporary respite. Mammals that hibernate the entire winter season astonish me. They do not come out of hibernation especially ready to face the day. They have lost a lot of weight, and are very hungry and thirsty. Hibernation is not at all like a good night’s sleep. I am reminded of the time a surgeon advised me that I would not be “asleep” for my surgery. I would be unconscious, and all of my normal functions paralyzed. A machine would breathe for me. The surgical team would see to it that my life was sustained. Though I appreciated his candor, I was frightened by this. No plant has a surgical team standing by. Their condition going into the winter will either be enough to sustain them throughout, or not. Our winter is not a big sleep. Dormant means shut down. Strong winter winds and low temperatures take their toll on plants whose only defense against the winter was a kindly summer and fall season. Needless to say, I have been watering like crazy.

I have no idea if the torrential rains we have had the past week will be enough to sustain my shrubs and trees through the winter, but it can’t hurt. I have not dug down to see how deep this rain has penetrated, but I know enough to be happy for every drop we have had.

Our fall is usually cool, and the rain is somewhat regular. It is a perfect time to plant. The weather is mild. The plants are no longer in active growth, so moving them is less stressful. Unlike the spring season, when planting conditions can be less than ideal. The soil is freezing cold even though the ground has thawed. Sopping wet spring soil can be a poor environment for newly planted plants. The act of planting compacts the wet soil, driving out much needed air. The night time temperatures can swing up and down without warning. Spring is a sweet season for established plants, but can be very tough on new plantings. Who in Michigan has not witnessed tulips in full bloom encased in ice, and snow on the ground? So many times, my hope to plant a landscape in late March has had to wait until May. Michigan summers can be brutal. The heat and dry in the summer can be hard on transplanted trees, shrubs and perennials. No matter how much I water, the plants look grief stricken. Fall planting is a recipe for success in my zone. Though the daytime/night time temperatures are cool, the soil is much warmer than it was in the spring. The water from the sky seems like it is packed with vitamins and minerals, doesn’t it?

I am delighted with the prolonged rain. I hope that water has made some inroads on our dry soil. Cool fall temperatures mean that rain does not evaporate very quickly. The effects of our heavy rains will surely persist. I could have never delivered this volume and quality of water from my hose. My container plantings are most certainly coming to the end of their season. But the recent rains have endowed them with some saturated fall color.

A rain drenched garden is a good looking garden. Even these drought tolerant variegated kalanchoes look invigorated by the rain.   I can think of only a very few times when my garden was threatened by excessive rain. In most cases, water distress has more to do with poor drainage than too much rain. Our parched ground may not be restored to a normal moisture content by our recent rains, but every drop of it is appreciated.

Chilly, windy and rainy fall weather-bring it on. We have more to plant.

Save

Save

Save

Posted on: October 16, 2017 8 Comments
Filed Under: Woody Plants, the garden, perennial plants, Color, Fall, container planting