The Work I Did on my Gardening Vacation

So enough about the consuming. Here's what I accomplished.

Cleaned out the erstwhile vegetable/cutting garden, though not sure what will happen next. Before and after:
 
 

Grubbed out some of the forsythia along the back corner and planted the kerria.

 

Planted three autumn ferns bought at a church garden sale (heeding Martha's suggestion for the bare shrub border by the house):
 

Edged the front and back gardens, in the latter case using an uncharacteristically precise method:

 

And generally wished I'd had more time...

What I did on my gardening vacation - Part II

After success at Merrifield, I headed the next day to Colesville, where indeed the prices are cheaper. (But let me say that the plants at Merrifield are unfailingly healthy and abundant, and the whole place is so well maintained that you do get your money's worth.)

There I bought two hydrangeas, "Little Lamb' and 'Annabelle,' a fothergilla, and clethra 'Ruby Spice.' I haven't yet planted any of them because I'm still debating about where to put them.

The clethra might go behind the trellis, where its fragrance will waft over the terrace. One of the hydrangeas will replace the white azaleas, although now that one is in bloom, I remember why I'm so fond of it. Here it is with its potential replacement breathing down its neck.
 

The fothergilla - who knows? It has a "low, densely mounded form; leaves blue-green to dark green, turning orange and red in fall, becoming more yellow in shadier sites," according to Pam Duthie. It's also fragrant, allegedly, when its bottlebrush blooms appear, though I didn't find it especially so. Probably this will go in the shrub border along the house.

What I did on my gardening vacation - Part I

A long overdue account of what I accomplished the week before last...

Questing after shrub borders against the fence, I've been reading "Continuous Color" by Pam Duthie.

She recommends shrubs with more than one season's interest. For each one she lists all the relevant details, including some gushing comments that undercut her authority just a bit. Nevertheless, based on her recommendations, I headed first to Merrifield and then to Colesville Nursery.

At Merrifield (in the pouring rain), I ended up with a Kerria japonica 'Golden Guinea,' which has single yellow roselike blooms and offers "bright green stems showy in winter." It's not an exciting shrub, but its yellow flowers are sweet. I was heartened to read Henry Mitchell calling it "common and unexciting" but going on to say,

And yet I well recall decades ago when I first saw this bright canary-yellow creature - golden quarters spangled the length of bright lime-green stems - in a Mississippi garden...I could not think of many good plants that would survive in dry shade, and besides, I wanted the green stems to be there in winter. Indeed, they are just as cheerful on a January day as I expected they would be.

Also at Merrifield, after surveying the yews


 






and the English laurels
 

with an interested eye, I came away with a Kirengeshoma, something I'd been interested in since planning the refurbished front garden. I've planted it under the oak tree in back and look forward to its leaves and blooms. It doesn't hurt to see Henry Mitchell saying

What could be grown in such a space, dampish and half shady, between brick pavement and the concrete wall of the pool? Well, if I moved the wild irises (Iris versicolor from a local swamp) out and dug in a barrowful of leaf mold and some peat moss and let it all settle down nicely, I could grow Kirengeshoma palmata. This is a perennial posing as a small shrub, growing three feet or so, with leaves like a Norway maple's and hanging yellow bells or trumpet flowers in October. I have never seen a photograph of it that would make anybody desire it. And yet I have never heard of any gardener who, seeing it in the flesh, did not want it. It's not the leaves and it's not the flowers -- it's the way the plant is put together with such refinement and freshness.

Here it is:
 

Also five Mahogany bugleweed to go under the oak leaf hydrangea, three white caladiums for pots, a Rex begonia, and a 'White Lady' hellebore to go somewhere...
Here's the wagon full:
 

More underplanting

The Carroll Gardens newsletter includes this timely question about underplanting maple trees, my exact challenge:

Question: The soil under our Maple tree is filled with roots and grass simply will not grow no matter how many times I have tried. I gave up on the grass and tried Pachysandra but it has dwindled away to nothing over the last year since I planted it. Is there anything that will grow under these conditions?

Answer: Growing plants under a Maple tree is indeed difficult. The problems are: shade, root competition and impoverished, dry soil. You may literally have to axe out a small section of root to be able to get your plants established, but this will not harm the Maple. The three plants with which I have had success, are: Symphytum grandiflorum, Geranium macrorrhizum and Japanese-variegated Solomon Seal (Polygonatum odoratum Thundergil Variegatum). I suggest you start with a few plants of each and see which thrives best under the Maple. All three will eventually spread and cover the ground.

I love the perennial geraniums and will seriously consider them - the others seem too tall for what I'm envisioning, but my vision changes by the day.

10 thoughts on successful underplanting

I had no idea that the style of my oak tree garden has a name, but according to Margaret Roach, it's called underplanting. (Or maybe I should say that I knew about underplanting but never associated it with what I'm doing. Whatever.) She has some amazing and inspiring examples on her blog. I'm now yearning for the glossy ginger instead of the ordinary kind I have, and wondering about underplanting the maple tree with lots of hakonochlea. Food for thought...
10 thoughts on successful underplanting

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One of these things is not like the others

There should be three 'Shasta' viburnums along the fence line, but I bought them at different times - one from Merrifield (the one in bloom) and the other two from Colesville. I have a sneaking suspicion that the other two are a different variety (ya think?) - but which? Anyone know?

 

The miracle of Ferry Farm

The bloodroot lives! No matter that it is tiny and seems to have moved around a bit...it's alive!!