Sunday, June 29, 2014

Saturday at the Paine


Saturday I visited The Paine in Oshkosh.  I try to get there each year once or twice.  They bed out a lot of annuals, but I really like it for its bones of established shrubs and trees.  It is also a public garden space which I feel has the most in common with where I actually garden.



On this Saturday, it was all decked out for a wedding.
We were there five minutes and the sky literally opened up and it poured, torrentially, for like five minutes and then the sun was back.  We took shelter under a canopy left in place from the wedding .  




The garden seems to have this pale yellow, white, lime green, and blue green theme going on this year.





They had also placed a teak marimba in the gardens, with mallets.  Handsome Son, who has more than little musical talent and a good ear broke into some musical scales and variations which actually sounded quite composed.  It added more than a little ethereal ambiance to the surrounding space.  Being slow to come into the clearing where he was playing, I didn't realize it might be him playing.  Girlfriend was surprised, too.

'Baby Duck' petunias looking good...especially given the day; one for ducks.


Tuesday, June 24, 2014

2014 Fox Valley Master Gardeners Garden Walk: Part 2

If you like shady gardens, this was a truly nice one.  It had lots of large, well-grown hostas, and well-done visual interest.



The bottle tree was not in the open garden but in a neighbor's yard across the way...poor Japanese lilac!

A bottle tree with pegs or nails directly fastened into a living tree, in this case a Japanese lilac.  Japanese lilacs can take a lot of abuse.  I think this probably crosses the line, though.


The Master Gardener to the right in this picture was very knowledgeable, and I spoke to her at length.  She confessed she had lost every shrub and tree in her front yard this spring due to our winter; none of which were yews (I asked).  I think she walked with me to the back yard, worried I would take a header when she saw me walking with my cane.  She really needn't have worried.  (My mother complained that I must have a sign on my forehead," talk to me!")

This pergola covered with a bamboo shade was well made (and looked to be within my carpentry skill level) and provided shade for the unusual variegated ligularia below.


Not allium argentum, more like allium spray paintium...

Allium sprayed here to match the weathered frame of the glass-less windows.



Monday, June 23, 2014

The Sap Sucker Returns


Perched in my Beauty of Moscow lilac, a sap sucker.  Like I said, "Too bad you can't pound the crap out of the Austrian pine any longer!"

Sunday, June 22, 2014

2014 Fox Valley Master Gardeners Garden Walk: Part 1

Yesterday I went on a Garden Walk hosted by the Fox Valley Master Gardeners.  I did not visit their Community Garden, but the private garden I visited had a lot to see.  There were some great plant combinations, some well placed unusual accessories, and some unusual plants.  Almost every one of these gardens had some spruce on the adjacent property to theirs with spruce tip fungus.  It seems pretty widespread in the Valley.  One Master Gardener confessed to me she lost every shrub and tree in her front yard, including a Harry Lauder Walking Stick (which can't grow in my garden just 30 miles west, and is probably marginal in hers, although I did see one that must have been nearly twenty years old, damaged, but alive after our brutal winter.).

I'll let the pictures of this first garden tell their own story.



A great color combo, cheddar tollius, hosta aureo marginata, and theat orange pixie Asiatic lily.

The seemingly ubiquitous and required bottle tree.
It was almost over-accessorized, but then it had some great plants and few annuals.  I forgave her.

I am always jealous of the gardeners who seem to have this particular foxglove perennialize for them.
Smokebush 'Golden Spirit', the largest I have seen.  Mine will not be allowed to get this big.

I liked this millet with the new growth on the (I think) abies 'Concolor'.


I turned back to take another look at the back garden as a whole and saw this critter in the neighbor's yard..  Time to design a screening hedge, I think!

A bit of winter burn on a 'Blue Star' juniper growing as a low standard.

'Crimson Queen" Japanese maple, I would have taken the time to trim out the dead growth tips from the winter kill because of its prominent spot in the landscape and because it is still manageable at just 6' to 7' tall.  I would also prune in a bonsai style to keep it only this tall, wher it fits perfectly in her corner between the house and abutting garage.
I enjoyed this garden, and was able to tall to the gardener, herself who was very knowledgeable.  She had a beautiful yard and lots of unusual plants.  She had lost a couple larger trees and shrubs over the last couple years, but had redone these sections well to compensate for the losses.  I did not notice these things until she pointed them out; the really large hosta under the very small redbud, for example.

It was a beautiful yard.




Saturday, June 21, 2014

A Walk in My Garden

I like to mass out plants in my Long Border and try for as much color as possible.  An unlikely and plebian pairing is oenethera 'Sundrops' and a white perennial geranium.  Later the filapendula and mum change this area to pink, but right now it is a completely different palette.

Oenthera 'Sundrops'

A few biennial campanula seed each year.  Bees like them!

This is a gift from my neighbor across the way.  I have admired it for a couple years, but I don't remember the name.  I believe it is related to the knotweeds, though.  It is very statuesque and does not need staking.

Back corner of my garden where I moved the Japanese 'Bloodgood' and had everything heeled in when I fell last fall.  Need editing, but not today.

First bloom on one of my new clematis.  This is it's second year.  In the spirit of climbers, it shares its trellis with rose 'Blaze' which died to the ground and will not be blooming this year, although it is alive.

Flower on the annual  silver sage which survived the brutal winter to do its biennial bloom.

My rose 'William Baffin' lost quite a few large canes, but is blooming on my front porch.

My front privet hedge died to the ground in two spots.  Hopefully it will regrow quickly from a larger root mass and fill in these gaping holes. 
A glance across the street, where my gardening friend lives.  The rugosa 'Albanel' (left foreground) has been really good this year.  The color combo with the peony Mrs. Roosevelt and hot pink petunias on the right has been superb.  It is a great view from my front porch.  In the background you can see his climber 'John Cabot' blooming, too.  It also lost several large canes but is still blooming the entire length of its remaining canes.
 

A thinner slice of the long border,   Spirea 'Princess', a salvia, variegated weigelia, and 'Sundrops' bloom.
This combo is a bit strange, the weigelia 'Carnaval' with its pink/white/red blooms which took a hit this winter, the orange yellow honeysuckle looking great, and the 'William Baffin' pink rose.  Sort of out there as a color combo.

Side yard seating, not a lot of color here until some of the daylilies bloom.