Taste the Flowers

Flowers, bees...honey!

I don't keep bees. I maintain a bee-friendly environment. Even before birds, bees are the largest group of visitors in my garden. (You mammals, I am talking to you mice and deer; war has been declared!) I provide water with easy perching places. I don't use herbicides in a pre-emptive manner and never as foliar sprays. I used a pesticide just once, on a cool day (It may have been less than 50 degrees that day. I hope all you bees stayed home that day, keeping your queen warm.). The apple blossoms had dropped. I was after the coddling moths who seem smitten by my Honeycrisp apple tree. (I did the climbing roses the same say to ward off the evil sawflies.)

Bees are kept in my neighborhood, a very short flight path from my raspberries, Seckl pear, strawberries, and apple. Yesterday, the beekeeper blessed me with a half pint of fresh honey, saying it had been a very good year.

Can honey have good years like wine? I'd like to know. Is there a "terroir" effect for honey? Maybe I am tasting the freshness of the honey before it has sat and evaporated to make it the overly, sickingly sweet sticky, fabricated mess you can sometimes accidentally buy in a retail setting. None the less, this honey was just the right amount of sweet, the right consistency on a spoon, without out any sediment or crystalization.

And, I swear I could taste just a hint of fruit and berries, and maybe...wild roses. It does not get any more local than this.

Large and Lush

Comfrey, symphytum officinale

Large and lush, my symphytum officinale is taking up some real estate these days. A member of the borage family, symphytum or comfrey is a broad-leaved herb with hairy leaves and blue flowers. Typically it blooms May through early July, but mine has really spread out and appears to be setting up a second flush of bloom this year.

Water Features

At Longwood Gardens

This summer I saw a lot of water features in gardens. This is a round-up of those pictures.

From the famous Teacup Garden at Chanticleer

Ubiquitous frog fountain at Winterthur's Enchanted Garden

Motion-activated misting fairy ring of stone mushrooms at the Enchanted Garden at Winterthur. My son obviously became enchanted.

Horse/cattle trough, are we in the Midwest? Nope. Winterthur again...

Also at Winterthur

Ceramic something something at Chanticleer held bubbling water.

At Chanticleer, almost an afterthought, placed within the Teacup Garden

A fun fountain at Longwood Gardens; the main "over the top DuPont style fountain which covers ACRES is undergoing renovations. 

Overflowing lotus form in the foyer area of the Longwood Conservatory

Fun little fountain off to the side of the main waterfall in the Conservatory at Longwood.

Waterfall in the Conservatory at Longwood.

 Besides these "smaller" features there was also a waterlily garden larger than my entire garden...

Not water nymphs, but fearless and prepared traveling companions at Longwood in the Conservatory. I have to give a shout-out to the always prepared Scout Master Jay for planning the shortest travel paths to car from any point in the gardens and to Chari and Austin for worrying about my stamina navigating the seemingly endless 30 degree paved slopes. I wish I had been wearing a pedometer to track my miles at Longwood Gardens.

August Bloom Day

Daylily 'Wind Dancer'

Daylily 'Joan Senior'

Phlox, I think, 'Pixie Miracle Grace'. The flower is very similar to 'Blue Boy' which I also have, but 'Pixie Miracle Grace' has noticeably more compact growth habit and better mildew resistance. Actually, it shows no signs of powdery mildew this year. 

Sedum 'Autumn Joy'

Hosta lancifolia

Hydrangeas Anabelle and 'Quickfire'

Rose 'John Cabot'

Just a bit of everything else before I go nuts on hydrangeas...

Into the Dirt (Part 1)

Bare ground, a rarity in garden

The last few days since returning from Pennsylvania, I have been digging out plants and composting them. A plant here, a plant there, to whole planting areas. barberries, rudbeckia nitidia, beebalms, brown-eyed Susans; I like to think of it as editing. Too much is too much.

I have often heard the maxim, "Learn what grows good for you and grow a lot of it." When a gardener first begins this is not bad advice. At a certain point, though, you are no longer a beginning gardener, but something more. It is this something more that drives me at this point in my gardening journey.

I will confess I am a plant collector. The very nature of this statement makes garden design difficult. Finding "the repeat" with different plants or a unifying line to draw the eye can be a challenge.

Chanticleer Garden

Pillars with the chicken from which the play on the French word chanticlere Chanticleer is named.

I went on vacation. Gardens would be favored on any vacation. Chanticleer Garden was my favorite. My brother-in-law was quick to point out that the gardens broke all the rules. There was a certain adventurous disregard for balance of color and form and placement of plants. The result was lots of drama and division of large spaces into much more manageable and view-able spaces. The play of light and dark tones was most noticeable without the expected colors from middle ranges.

Trees...of the Mid-Atlantic States

Franklinia, possibly extinct in the wild, a native American tree in bloom at Longwood Gardens

We often walk right pass them. Here in central Wisconsin decent trees are a rarity and can be grouped into genus fairly quickly due to the small number represented.

One of 

Swamp magnolia at Winterthur

Tall and straight, we have so few similar trees here.

Tricolor beech espaliered on a stucco wall at Chanticleer

One of the largest dogwood, cornus florida, I have ever seen.

The oldest sycamore at Hagley Mills, the lower trunk does not even appear sycamore-like, similar to how old white pine change their bark as they age.