I could tell this morning, when the birds were louder than the chuckle and siss of my coffee maker, that spring has sprung officially and certainly, no doubt about it. It even seemed almost a little easier to bounce out of bed this morning. Now that the forsythia is in full bloom I think it’s time to really pay attention or the next thing you know it’ll be mid-summer! Do you have color associations for the different phases of the seasons? Spring, to me, is a bright yellow and light greenish feathery time and then there’s an early summer shift to pale blue. It seemed like a lot of people walking the property today were in my early summer color - there’s a lot of blue going on and I don’t think everyone was decked out for our superstar garden and archives volunteer, Mary - or maybe they were! We, the staff, and a few volunteers definitely were. Here’s all of us wearing blue. We love you, Mary!

I’m not sure what happened to the lull I mentioned last week - it’s over and we’re already in 4th gear revved to full speed ahead. We started moving some of Dick’s and our vegetables outside to harden off and yesterday the Rockettes deadheaded the hydrangeas by the summer house and Gail and Joel and I started moving shrubs and the last few perennials out of the Idea Beds. (More on the Idea Bed redesign later.) We also planted out the foxgloves we babied in the greenhouse over the winter and helped the Florabundas cut back the old liriope leaves in the bed by the Moongate. If the days weren’t so beautiful our crews might have complained bitterly about their hydrangea and liriope chores being like deadheading the Coryopsis ‘Moonbeam’ - which if you’ve ever attempted that task you know it’s tedious-ridiculous-endless. We don’t have any ‘Moonbeam’ in the gardens anymore…

And I can’t leave out the daffodil report. It’s so close to peak I’m calling it pretty nearly peak. The next couple of days are forecasted stunners and I think that the buds that are poised to open might just have to pop. We still think full and total peak will occur this weekend and into and beyond next week as long as the weather cooperates. Keep an eye on the forecast and please come through whenever you can!

Is it long winter’s naptime yet? I’m bushed tuckered pasted wasted fried asleep on my feet! The gardens are done. Pretty much. Mostly! And we can cross more off of Gail’s to-do list. Yesterday the Florabundas came in for a last go through of the Rose and North Gardens. We weeded and cut the dead out of the roses. The weather isn’t reliably cold enough yet for us to be sure the roses are totally done growing (and there are still bloomable buds) so we decided to wait to do the winter whipping-cane cut back. The North Garden is ready for bed - we gave the Nepeta a little haircut, the Geranium ‘Rozanne’ a trim, cut the wall ivy back out of the beds and took the dead out of the Rosa ‘Ballerina’s too. Gail and I went back to do a little futzing around with daylilies - why are they never in quite the right spot? - and then pronounced that garden “done”. (wahoo!) Today Gail and I relocated more Idea Bed plants to the newer Display Garden beds because it’s looking more and more likely that Fred and Dan will be able to get started on phase 2 of the redesign this winter (wahoo times two!). I’m sorry I don’t have illustrations of this week’s work - it was chilly and busy and aside from perhaps my last praying mantis portrait of the season (it was a frosty day slow mover on the most robust ‘Rozanne’ ever) I kept forgetting that I should be documenting all the activity!

Next week we’ll be inside decorating the front hall christmas tree (it’s an 18′-er - and yours truly will have tree top scaffold duty. I will remember to take pictures from up there!) and we’ll be attending the Garden Design Luncheon on Thursday. Have you signed up yet? I’m going to work on getting my fingernails clean as soon as I have a little lie-down first…

Fall garden clean-up is the subject of the week all over the world wide interweb! A conversation was started at Bliss over the merits of putting off the major clean-up until spring. Wildlife certainly benefits from a garden full of winter snack seedheads and hiding places left intact; some plants really appreciate holding onto their natural cold weather protection and the soil is better off undisturbed.

In a public garden there are other factors to consider in the fall. Blithewold’s gardens are open year-round and we have to make sure that they’re attractive to gaze upon even in the off seasons. If we had a constant blanket of snow starting now, we probably could let things go (ugh! perish the thought!) but we also do a lot of furniture moving in the fall and a-really-lot of bulb planting.

The Rock Garden is the one garden we let go a bit. We weed it and cover it in a pine needle blanket and save most of the felco action for spring. It’s off the beaten track in the winter, it’s pretty self-containedly tidy as it is and needs all the winter protection it can get (this is the garden that is occasionally covered in/surrounded by a high tide).

The North Garden is a different story and we spend several days putting it to bed in the fall. This week we took out annuals, tender perennials and dahlias and cut back things like phlox, baptisia, campanulas, asters and iris. We left the amsonia (for outstanding fall color), calamintha, nepeta (mostly - we will cut that back a little), caryopteris and ‘Rozanne’ geraniums (at least while they’re still blooming - they’re still blooming!). I do worry about the wildlife - we were able to rescue 3 praying mantis egg cases - but there’s hope that critters will retreat to the nearby Bosquet. Clearing the garden out in autumn gives us a chance to move perennials and we plant tulips where the annuals have just come out - that makes for easy placement and digging. We (and 3 Rockettes) planted 600 tulips in the North Garden this year!

This was the first year we had a lot of annuals in the Rose Garden. Visitors pass through that garden on the way to the mansion and it’s important that it be as aesthetically pleasing as possible every moment of every season. Melted annuals aren’t exactly a feast for the eyes so we took them out. But because we weren’t planting many bulbs in that garden we compromised a little and cut the plants off at the ground to leave a small feast (of roots) for the soil. I have to say though that cutting (hacking) through the remarkably woody stems of zinnias and heliotropes was not nearly as physically gratifying as ripping them out of the ground roots-n-all. Check out the size of the zinnia (Profusion Apricot) that Gail is holding: Last spring that plant was a 4″ seedling in a peat pot!

We’ve still got a page-long list of ToDos for those gardens but I’ll save what’s next for another post. Meanwhile, what I wonder is, do you treat the public beds in your garden differently in the fall than you do the parts of your garden hidden from your neighbors’ gaze?

Sometimes, it’s the pockets of lovely that catch and hold my eye rather than the grand view. In my own garden, the whole isn’t as pleasing (yet) as some of the little things here and there. And rather than feel disappointed in the grand view, I’m magnetically drawn in to the pretty parts and could gaze for days at them without even seeing the weeds! (hmmm… could that be a weeding chore avoidance tactic?) At Blithewold, the grand view is always stunning (sometimes overwhelmingly so) but now that we’re putting gardens to bed, and there are holes in the whole, the vignettes are extra especially noticeable and eye capturing.

The trees and shrubs are catching my eyes too - I’ve been waiting for the Common witch hazel (Hamamelis virginiana) to bloom and it’s beginning just in time for Halloween. Perfect timing because the blooms look, to me, like teeny weeny Tim Burton creations!

The Carolina allspice (Calycanthus floridus) smells like cotton candy this time of year.

The Sourwood (Oxydendrum arboreum) might be my new favorite tree - look at the colors!

This week we were a little undone by rain in the forecast (notice I didn’t say “undone by rain” period - we got some but not a lot in the end) and the Rockettes and Florabundas got days off. I missed the Rockettes’ company when I raked pine needles for the Rock Garden’s winter blanket and Gail and I missed the Florabundas’ when we dropped daffodils in auger drilled holes (Thanks, Fred and Dan!) by the main gate. We’re hoping an April display of daffs by the entrance will entice people to drop in to see the real show inside… I hope the bulbs do ok. The ground along Ferry Road is so fiercely dry, root-y and rocky that we couldn’t (no matter how Hitchcock’s Psycho we went at the holes with our hori-horis) plant some of the daffs at their preferred planting depth of 6-8″ down. You can see in the picture, some are pretty close to the surface… Clever things, they will dig themselves in deeper - if they can!…

The last wedding of the season is this weekend - it will probably be chilly but gorgeous! Cathy (our pinch-hitter garden helper), Gail and I spruced the Rose Garden and North Garden for the bride and her guests - and Jake came along to give his approving head butt. We had pockets of frost this morning but luckily nothing in the gardens was touched. Next week we’ll take out the dahlias in the North Garden, cut back perennials, toss annuals and plant tulips - we’re nearly ready for winter! Are you?

Can everyday be Action Day? There are bandwagons all over the place that I want to jump on. Here is a post about the three R’s (reduce, reuse, recycle) that reminded me to rave that Fred and Dan, Blithewold’s groundsmen are expert at Reusing/Recycling. They took sills from the old greenhouse when it was renovated and rather than hauling it to a scrapyard, they re-invented it as a bed edge and grass stair risers. Sometimes with a wide open to the possibilities imagination, a useless cast-off can be rescued from the landfill and transformed into the perfect solution!
This morning I found a sidetrack bandwagon in this (otherwise really interesting) post. I’ve been on a (passive) lookout for an alternative to the soilless potting mix that we use in the greenhouse. Most (all?) potting mixes are made with peat which is not a renewable resource. It also bears mentioning that peat harvests are killing precious bogs and I don’t want to be a party to bog death. I perked right up at the mention of coconut coir in this post and did just a little searching and found that it’s available by the brick and bale. I’m curious now - has anyone has used it either in or as a potting medium? What’s your source? Did you and your plants like it? Do you have any other peat-free potting medium recommendations? Enquiring gardeners want to know!

And if everyday is action day (sometimes action is not about Activism…) the volunteers have had a couple very active days! Here’s a before and after of the Cutting Bed - note that Gail and I have allowed the Asclepias physocarpa ‘Oscar’ (a.k.a. Hairy balls) to live on for the time being!… Next week we’ll be planting tulips.

And the Fairies have been pretty active too. The fairy family at 4 Dust Ave. has acquired some overstuffed furniture! Looks like they’re still working out how to get it up the stairs and down the hall…

All good things must come to an end? That’s definitely not my kind of philosophy but it was a little bit true in the Display Garden today. The mansion is closed for the season and it’s time for us to start working on next year’s gardens: Hopefully, if funds and weather allow, Fred and Dan will be able to continue the Display Garden redesign this winter. The Idea Beds are next on their list. Gail and I want to save most of the perennials and shrubs from those beds and decided to move most of them, at least temporarily to the new Display Garden beds (the Ellipse and Stone Bench Beds).

So today we and the Deadheads had the heartbreaking task of ripping the tender stuff out of the still beautifully blooming Ellipse Bed to make room. The Deadheads made the best of it though and cut flowers to take home and some even took a plant or two to winter over. Gail and I chose plants to take in for “stock” and took dozens of last minute cuttings from the garden before the digging, wrenching and hurling started.

We probably should have been more conscious of the resident critters - this mantis found shelter in the chaos but I wonder how many we inadvertently evicted?

Getting started with our first fall project was actually pretty fun and if we think of it as more of a beginning than an end … then all good things must keep on!

Chilly (almost) fall mornings have been so misty dewy lately that I get soaked to my shins just walking across the lawn. Can’t beat the quality of the light though and my morning ramble is worth every wet footed minute of the day!

As a little teaser for those who can make it to Fall Gardener’s Day tomorrow and for those who can’t, here are a few tastes of the property from my walk this morning.

Per Bright’s request, a full body shot of the pitcher plants with my pruners in for scale (Sarracenia leucophylla ‘Tarnok’, S. ‘Scarlett Belle’, and S. purpurea)

A seed pod forming on Asclepias physocarpa ‘Oscar’ (a.k.a. hairy balls - go figure).

An Aeonium in one of the new Display Garden beds - even though this isn’t at its most beautiful (it is a knockout during the winter in the greenhouse), it’s plenty gorgeous!

Near the Aeonium the stinky coleus (Coleus canina ‘Sumcol’) is budded up. This is a “touch me” plant that will leave you with a lingering eau d’ skunk. (pepe le pew! - but of course it’s one of my favorites)

I’m hoping some of my fellow bloggers and blog readers will introduce themselves to me tomorrow. On Wednesday I had the great pleasure of meeting Caroline Brown author of Earth Friendly Gardening. I’ve been enjoying her blog since before I started writing this one and I can’t wait to read what she has to say about her visit! (No pressure, Caroline!)

See some of you tomorrow and the rest of you on Monday! Happy (almost) Fall!

Late August. The annuals are up to speed or off the road, the perennials have shown their colors or given us a good hint of what’s to come and it’s time to assess the success of the gardens. Gail and I spent a good part of yesterday afternoon cruising the gardens and picking them apart - we’re especially hard on the North Garden.

My notes for the North Garden say things like “too much phlox! - divide/thin this fall” and “‘Sympathy’ dahlias are too pale - try ‘Fuchsiana’ next year?” The roses (Rosa ‘Ballerina‘) looked great in June and are doing their rusty leafdrop trick now. We anticipated that and in front of most of them, we planted Geranium ‘Rozanne’ in hopes that it would climb the roses and cover their naked legs. It worked! But we didn’t have a ‘Rozanne’ for every ‘Ballerina and the Rozanne-less roses stick out - literally. We can also see now that the daylilies are done that there are giant holes and we really need to find something that can either tough it out under all that foliage and take over when it gets pulled or think of something that could be planted about now. Any suggestions? Gail also says (every year she says) “anything not in bloom by mid-September has GOT to go!” We’ll see…

The Rose Garden looks better than it (ever?) has - everyone says so. Julie thinks there might be a little too much orange and I’m not sure there is such a thing… We’ve only begun the renovation in that garden and I’m already excited to think about next year’s additions.

The Display Garden has been growing gangbusters on one side and slow as molasses on the other. The new beds are just not thriving like the old ones. New soil might be to blame - it’s good stuff but evidently not as sweet as the old… This particular bed is boxed in by recycled iron from the old greenhouse and there’s been some speculation that the iron is leaching and stunting the plants. (These are tried and true plants for us that are usually fully abundant by now.) What else could it be?
This fall we’ve got to get ready for the guys to do more redesign work - the Idea Beds will change and all the perennials and shrubs in those beds will have to find new homes. Plenty to think about.

Some things on the property defy critique - like bosquet blooms, wild flowers and critters:

Lycoris squamigera (Resurrection lilies or as Gail has it - Naked ladies) are blooming in the bosquet. They emerge foliage-less in late summer and flower-less in spring. The Marsh Mallows (Hibiscus moscheutos - or palustris?) are blooming in large swampy swaths down by the bay.

Could this be my mantis maybe?

And does anyone know this fellow on the Clethra?

Rather than entertain the pants off/bore you to tears with stories about how I spent my summer vacation, I think it would be better to show you how Blithewold spent my summer vacation! It feels like I’ve been gone an age. The greenhouse computer couldn’t quite remember how to turn on at first, the space bar on the keyboard has settled under the weight of neglect and the garden looks like it didn’t miss me a bit. Two weeks ago it was still toddling along and now it’s grown as tall as me, started dating and learned to drive. The first thing I noticed was our Stapelia which, all of a sudden in the middle of the ocean had a bud the size of my fist. (click on pictures for larger images)

The Helenium ‘Butterpat’ and Rudbeckia triloba are vying for biggest yellow with Helianthus ‘Lemon Queen’. I think it’s a draw.

The Sanguisorba are also suddenly over my head.

Not only all that but the dog days seem to be over. This weekend the heat broke and I put a sweater on for the first time since … May? Signs of fall are all over the place - nurseries are selling Chrysanthemums, I have an urge to purchase new shoes and a pencil box and some trees look like they are starting to think about getting ready to turn. I spotted a red flare on the Tupelo (Nyssa sylvatica) down by the Rock Garden. Thank goodness other trees are still blooming (I’m not ready yet for summer to be totally over). The Moongate Sophora reminds me of fireworks.

Bits of rain here and there (some during the Display Garden Soiree — I heard that that night there was a little thunder and lightning - percussion and a lightshow for the Thomas Family Celtic Bluegrass Celebration!) did not fill the frog pond. There are all sorts of critter tracks through the mud - deer, racoon, human child - I hope the frogs are well buried and waiting out the dry spell with a good book.

I’m sure there’s much much more to report - Gail will fill me in tomorrow on what else I missed. And I’ll show her this:

It’s good to be back!

The blazing sun and muggy heat this past couple of weeks has been the true test for us, the volunteers and the freshly planted. The Deadheads dripped (sweat) and deadheaded and Nick-the-Unstoppable ripped all the old wrinkling fabric out from under the gravel paths. This week Fred and Dan dug the smoke bush by hand, wrapped a tidy root ball, and moved it about 50′ to it’s new permanent location on the other side of the Display Garden. It looks meant to be and like it’s been there forever! (fingers crossed and lots of T.L.C. while it settles in.) That garden is ready to be Soireed!

We and the Rockettes (well, one Rockette who beat the heat) cleaned a big daylily border and deer damage in the Rock Garden. The Rock and Water Garden have been host to a lot of wildlife lately. A visitor spotted a mink, another startled a great blue heron and there are racoon tracks in the disappearing-pond mud. I suspect our frog friends are supper…

The Rose Garden is looking spectacular (everyone says so!) especially compared to previous years. The Heliotrope and Zinnias are loving the heat and have gotten huge and the roses are going for a mid season bloom despite the Japanese beetle infestation. Mercilous Florabundas drowned with one hand and deadheaded with the other. The new shrubs are standing the test of summer - all but one Pinus strobus ‘Blue Shag’. We bought three and the other two have grown leaps so we think this one must have had pre-planting root problems. So far, that’s the only casualty from our batch of purchased plants. The transplants are also taking the heat in stride - except for one ‘Sum and Substance’ hosta in the new dry shade bed by the Moongate. By the looks of it, it succumbed to mold and rot. The other three are still looking hale-n-hearty (knock wood and eyes out for spores)… The North Garden is glowing white with Phlox ‘David’ and Hydrangea ‘Limelight’ (my favorite - it’s late and green tinged). So far all is very well!

The blaze and mug topped with seasonal fatigue has turned my brain to jelly. Yesterday I blamed a wicked headache on the weather - I shook my fists at the sun, cowered under my hat, became blathery and probably sounded to visitors and coworkers decidedly unqualified for my job. At home I discovered a clean coffee cup next to a full pot… Right… Rather than continue my detox, I choose caffeination today in hopes of being able to string a few sentences together. Speaking of stringing sentences, I have a little quote to share with you that I found oddly (quite contrarily) inspirational:

Yet still I believe in gardening when I have the time and even stronger, believe in writing when I have something of merit to say. Too often as of late, some horticultural blahgs I attempt to read are nothing but meaningless and embarrassingly concocted twaddle. I am acutely sensitive to contributing to an inchoate heap of words better composted.
-Daniel J Hinkley

I am constantly amazed at how many people are writing, taking pictures and creating community on the world wide interweb. Not everyone has lucrative book deals and just like wanting to share a recipe (”I had the most amazing desert last night - you’ve got to try it. Here’s what you do…”) we all have something we want to offer. Blahgers give it away - to anyone who wants some - for free. Thank you to everyone who has chosen to read my heap of words and I hope all my twaddle inspires a roadtrip to Blithewold - or your nearest public garden.

Now it’s time for a vacation! I’ll be recharging for the next two weeks and hope that when I am back, faithful readers, you will return too! Stay tuned for late August and September coming attractions: more portraits of praying mantis and maybe yellow orb spiders; perhaps a mink sighting; late season garden pictures; September Days and Gardeners’ Day; and (hopefully) a busman’s holiday with Gail to Chanticleer and other Wayne, PA gardens. Until then, Garden On (and tell us all about it)!