Reviewing Spring

Post 39

Spring is just about done as the summer humidity begins to hit. No more of of the above--

Or the below--

Such fresh sparseness has had its day

           

Till next year.

Here are a few more of my favorite pics from the season that is passing.

Geums worked well this year with almost two months of bloom, giving a strong, airy dash of color.

This native azalea is a Pinxter Azalea and gives height to the right of the front side path, sorta like a big, fat  pink exclamation point.I like the openness of the native azaleas. There is something about plants that are so covered in blooms you cannot see any air or green that uneases me. Looks stubby, not graceful. I prune this one back right after flowering, otherwise it could grow to 15 feet or so, which would look weird, considering the size of my yard. It likes decent drainage, acid soil and moderate water.  If happy it suckers a bit, but the stems have shallow roots and are easy to dig up and transplant elsewhere.

This was taken in my back yard, which gets a few hours of dappled sun. It shows a rhododendron that was there when we moved in. Next to it I planted an Aucuba japonica that I got at Rare Finds Nursery in N.J. (Rare Finds is a bit out of the way, but it has interesting and unusual stock.) I'm not sure what variety of Aucuba it is, I think maybe Golden King. Anyway, it does great competing with the roots of the silver maple it is sited under.
It is a highly unfashionable plant but nevertheless the right presence in the right spot.



Does anyone not like Irises? They need their own post though, and this one is long enough. So another pic, no more words, and done.

Roses: The Which and the How, No Need to Explain the Why.

Post 38

Happy Rosetime.

I grew up scared of roses.

Out on Long Island in the 60's, roses were either beautifully wild at dunes' edge or hybrid tea roses that needed to be fussed over, if not fussed over they decayed. Plus, the white ones my parents grew were old sock white by the second day of their 5 day, once a year, bloom.

I had no idea how easy it would be to grow these reblooming beauties ( including the rose at the top of the post. (And yeah--both readings work.))

These are not my best roses.  These are the dead-easy roses that gave me confidence to try other roses. These are all Knock-Out Roses in blush pink, yellow, coral and red. They are as likely to be sold at box stores as at nurseries. They have been joined by a new series with "carpet" in the title, and I have high hopes for pretty 'Amber" below. All these need is 5 hours of sun a day, average water, a wack back in March, followed by another after first bloom. If you throw in mulch, compost and/or Rose-Tone, you will be amply rewarded

A slightly more difficult but lovey climbing rose came with the house, though she was growing in a part of the back yard that no longer gets much sun. I transplanted her to the side of the house and still do not know her name. She gets black spot every year as summer turns humid, but my lack of fussing and spraying has not lessened her ardor. She remains a doer.

So, after these,  was I ready to advance into higher rosedom?  Well, ready or not, I did. And Anglophile that I am, it was, of course, right into David Austin Roses.

One day, end-of-season, I saw a droopy, neglected rose on sale called Christopher Marlowe. Taking him home, I gave him as much amended Golden Rule love as I could, for which he thanked me eloquently with blooms like this--red at bursting, then pink with golden tangerine tinges, sorta Elizabethean psychadelic.  

And--after I saw that I hadn't managed to kill Kit ( he can suffer from non-lethal blackspot thou,) I added Grace, and at full price too. She is achingly comely.

She goes well with Kit, who, lets face it, always needed some kind of Grace. I'd like to add Will soon.

And those roses I mentioned earlier, the ones at dunes' edge that I'd loved as a kid? They were/are species Rugosa Roses, which are hardy and easy. They will grow almost anywhere--including this cultivar in my yard.

So--that's almost all my roses for now. 

Well-till at the Ned Wolf Plant sale I saw Theresa Buget, a Canadian rose without real thorns but with almost ferny foliage and spun sugar blooms (see left.) I'm trying her in the sunniest part of my backyard, since I'm running out of space in the sunny front yard. Which only means I need a bigger sunny front yard! 

I hope I have quieted any rose fears. Roses are really no more difficult than most plants, slightly heavier feeders maybe, but that is easy to provide. And one last basic but important rule: when you are pruning, always cut just above the node of a stem that has five leaves on it: never 3, always 5. Do that and all will be, not only hunky-dory, but also more sweet-smelling than you could have imagined.

The River, or The Thing Itself: Wissahickon Style VI

 "The world-hidden, wood embowered Wissahickon" George Lippard

Post 37

Around sunset earlier this spring I went walking down an uncrowded Forbidden Drive. The lively peace of it was moly to my soul. Somewhere in the complex interlacing of all the elements of this ecosystem was a simplicity that ordered my own interlacings and complexities. A river valley feels like a decent analogy for wholeness.

The valley is not pristine, but layered, graceful and vital. You never know what old, odd feature you will come across. Was some bit of stonework built by colonists to grind corn, 19th-century business people to power mechanical processes or the WPA during the Great Depression? 

Yet, nature seems almost too fresh and abundant to admit ingress of human handiwork. Perhaps these rocks just grew here, like the plants, roots and vines that cover them?  

                                                                                                    

 In places, it is almost as difficult to tell the difference between organic and inorganic as between natural and man-made.

But instead of this blurring breeding confusion and anxiety, it seems to produce peace and contentment.

So many people use this Watershed for so many pleasures, yet it still retains a whiff of something like unmediated nature. It is as if you can catch a feel of an undefinable something, something like a peaceful wilderness or a blessed fairyland, something inchoate and ineffable but nevertheless, apprehendable. 

                                                                                                                                                                       

                                                                           

Our area's style has much in common with that of other contemporary early railroad suburbs on the East Coast. Some of the areas around N.Y., such as Bronxville or Weschester Co., even have a similar schist underlay. Still, the best of Wissahickon Style carries with it a strong hint of that only partially recoverable wholeness that our unusual gorge, tunneled out of its channel of rock, is capable of conveying.

 

Ned Wolf Park Plant Sale: May 5th 10-1

Post 36

Now is the time of plant lust.

Now is the time to fill those gaps in the garden, to buy useful and/or unusual plants at bargain prices, to get advice and tips from fellow-gardeners and to enjoy a splendiferous morning at a community park/garden event. 

As the Philly Fun Guide says "This beloved community plant sale will offer hundreds of perennials for sun and shade, shrubs, annuals, houseplants, and tools—all donated to support the Friends of Ned Wolf Park."  Also, local gardeners will be available for gardening questions.

Ned Wolf Park is in Mt. Airy, Philadelphia, at the corner of McCallum and W. Ellet Streets. It is gardened by volunteers as both a lush local refuge and an educational exhibit garden of what is possible in a small space in this area. Not only are there benches for sitting and a section of sunny grass for sunning,but  there are also plant guides to help beginning gardeners learn how to create a garden.

 It is a city park named after a local activist lawyer who was head of the West Mt. Airy Neighbors Assoc. during the critical years when Mt. Airy was becoming what U.S. News and World Report has called the most successful integrated neighborhood in the U.S.  It is a fitting memorial to a man who cared so much about the community he loved.