Yesterday, the Rockettes and I were walking back to the greenhouse from planting teeny poppies and blue woodruff in the Rock Garden and I finally saw a tree that my eyes must have bounced off of nearly every day since I started working here. The tree has beautiful peeling bark that would have been a perfect feature in a Winter Interest post (maybe next winter I’ll write one of those…) and according to the AHS A-Z it has midsummer flowers (insignificant according to Julie) followed by pea-like seed pods. But this is what the Maackia amurensis has now and what my eyes finally lit on and saw:

From a distance the emerging leaves looked almost purple/blue and up close they were sterling silver busting out of an 18k greengold wrap! The thing that I can’t get over is not that it was one of the most incredible color combos I’ve ever noticed in nature but that I simply hadn’t registered the tree before. My challenge for you, if you choose to accept it, is to look at something new that you see everyday. You might find a surprise every bit as sublime and stunning and knock you off your rocker gorgeous (like these Red maple samaras).

There are other things we’re noticing in the gardens that aren’t so wonderful but are just as important to keep an eye out for. Gail and I spotted Cedar-apple rust (Gymnosporangium juniperi-virginiani) on a Juniper near the greenhouse. These alien orange gelatinous globs of disgusting goo appear in April/May usually after a rain on the host plant - Junipers (Juniperus virginiana) a.k.a Eastern Red Cedars - and then spread by spore to infect apples and native crabapples (most non-natives are resistant). Damage on apples appears as leaf spots, poor quality fruit and repeated infection can eventually cause the tree to die. Take a look at your junipers - if you see an orange Martian with horns, cut it off and throw it out (but not in the compost).

Today we moved some perennials from the North Garden to the Rose Garden and as I was digging my planting holes I came across these critters. The larger brown-orange one I think is a Gypsy Moth pupa (anyone know for sure?) and when I suggested putting the wriggling guy on the pavement for the birds to find both Gail and Julie said “Awww…” and the Mom in Gail said “We don’t harm nature, Kris.” So I rolled my eyes and buried it again. I squarshed the other one though and several of its siblings. And I would pay any child a penny a pinch to do the same because it was a Japanese beetle grub and future rose devour-er. I had half a mind to keep digging up the Rose Garden to try and find them all… Instead I did something much more pleasant - I nipped and pinched and groomed our lavenders. Older specimens often open up in the middle and pinching can help keep them young at heart.

Daffodil Days are still going strong although the daffodil show is beginning to go by. It’s a good thing the parade of (other) blooms has only just begun!

Look up. Look out. New leaves are turning all over the place! I think if you had the patience you could practically sit and watch the births like chicks hatching. I don’t have that kind of patience - or that kind of time! But I’m glad to have taken a look up and out this morning. The Cut Leaf Full Moon Japanese Maple (Acer japonicum ‘Aconitifolium’) was my morning’s favorite and another that sports puppy fur - which reminds me, no one has shared the answer yet to the fur’s-purpose question from the other day - my guess is still for frost protection.

The Kentucky yellowwood (Cladastrus kentuckea ‘Sweet Shade’) is finely fuzzed too. - What a shape! This one was my favorite.

And the Cinnamon fern (Osmunda cinnamomea) are also nestled in fur muffs and suprisingly tall all of a sudden! (favorite)

The Katsura (Cercidiphylum japonicum) leafed out overnight - the last I looked it only had flowers and now it’s got leaves the size of quarters. (2nd favorite)

And the Butterbur (Petasites japonicus) is giving me fits because its leaves have grown so much in the last week that I’ve had to move the label further out 3 times. (gah. but, of course - it’s a favorite.)

Aside from watching the leaves grow, strolling through a peak daffodil display and chatting with hundreds of visitors (hurrah for a banner week!) we’ve gotten a lot done the last couple of days and even put some stars on our calendar. -We draw big stars and underlines and color it all in highlighter orange when we’ve passed a major milestone. This week it was planting the sweet peas! We grew 17 varieties (including colors like Royal Wedding and April in Paris - in honor of my March) and planted them on a new fence edging Dick’s vegetable garden.

We also spent time with the Rockettes this morning replanting a muddy bank of Astilbe that have been hurling themselves out of the ground in the last couple of years. We could just pick up the clumps with our hands, they had heaved so much. Some clumps managed to survive such a life (fish out of water) and we’ll replace the ones that died with other things that might like a boggy shade bank that occasionally goes bone dry in a drought. (Is there anything?) This is a really good time, by the way, to move, divide or replant perennials - we try to do all our perennial moving before the end of April.

And could it be time already to hoop the peonies??!! Better check yours - I got our hoops on in the North Garden just in time - I didn’t have to smash and yank!

What have you been up to this week? Any milestones?  Turn over any new leaves?

It’s a sunny, breezy 24 degrees F. outside and a sunny, fragrant, toasty-feeling 62 in the greenhouse. I’d rather be in the greenhouse than out of it right now. If you’re anything like me, in the middle of deep winter on the cusp of the age of aquarius you have a serious case or at least the onset of a serious case of cabin fever. It’s raw outside and it’s funky inside. For a gardener, I think the best cure is to surround yourself with plants.

As I see it there are a couple of options. For the unwilling to venture out, you could gather all of your plant babies together (or make the rounds) and spend some quality time grooming them. Have you started fertilizing yet? If you have, you might notice bugs on the succulent new growth. There’s nothing better than a little pest-icide on a winter’s day. Do you have a favorite method of control? In the greenhouse we duke it out with aphids, whitefly, mealy bug, scale and occasionally spidermite. We recently tried a Neem spray by Organica which cost $9 for a quart. For the difference in price between that and dish soap/insecticidal soap and no discernible difference in results, I have to say I prefer using soap. With soap I can spray with abandon! Neither Gail nor I love the smell of the Neem or the insectical soap, and I’m thinking of switching to my favorite lavender scented dish soap. Doesn’t lavender oil have insecticidal properties too or am I making that up? (Not that there’s much/any real lavender oil in the soap…) When I use any kind of soap, I dilute it so that there’s just the hint of a bubble in the spray and we don’t use it on the ferns or anything else with sensitive pores. We used to use horticultural oil (again, not on ferns, etc) but probably because I do have a tendency to spray with wanton abandon, many poor plants suffered under the onslaught and their leaves burned. It is best to spray -anything- on a cloudy day. Horticultural oil will kill scale but I actually prefer picking them off by hand and washing leaves and stems to control the sooty mold that grows on their sugary poo.

If you’ve already turned your own house into a greenhouse (anytime you pay attention to the plants in your house, you’re in a virtual greenhouse) and you’re ready for an outing - think about going to an actual greenhouse to indulge in a different climate. Not all greenhouses feel tropical but they are warmer than the outdoors and more humid than indoors - a welcome sigh in the middle of dry winter! More often than not there’s a scent or 12 to sip with your breath too. This teeny weeny little cluster of blooms is part of what’s scenting our greenhouse these days. It’s a Sweet Olive - Osmanthus fragrans and it’s delish.

The trip to the Smith College Botanic Garden is still on and there’s not much time left to sign up (the deadline for registration is February 6). Don’t miss this trip - sign up now and cure that cabin fever! Check out the Smith College Botanic Garden site if you need more motivation.

(click on images for a larger view and captions)

For Fred and Dan, leaf cleanup on the property must feel about as futile as vacuuming a cat. They were collecting leaves this breezy morning in the same places they’ve been cleaning up for weeks now and the trees just kept right on shedding. Sometimes it’s better to put off until tomorrow what can’t be finished today!

A couple of weeks ago Fred and Dan delivered 4 truckloads of beautiful dry leaves to the compost area for us to shred for the gardens. There’s nothing so delicious as shredded leaves for the garden! This time of year we use the leaves to mulch things like the figs which need extra protection in the winter (more about the figs later!), and Dick (the veggie garden volunteer) was given a layer of leaves and grass for the vegetable bed - he should be able to plant right in the mix next spring without needing to rototill. In the spring and summer we use the shredded leaves to top dress the beds in the Display Garden. I think they make a beautiful looking as well as a beneficial mulch and I always think the gardens look “done” when they’ve been dressed. Even if you mulch your beds in the fall, it’s a good idea to shred the leaves rather than use them whole so that they begin the breakdown process and allow the rain to reach through - a solid mat of leaves can choke rather than feed a garden. So between Fred, Nick-The-Willing (one of the Deadheads who says “Sure, I’ll do that!” anytime we ask for help), and myself we passed that enormous pile, scoop by scoop through the machine into another slightly smaller enormous pile. We already have more leaves in that pile than we had last year but we’re feeling greedy and needy and with any luck, Fred and Dan will be able to gather another pile for us next week. I’ll bet they are crossing their fingers for a good breeze to shake off the rest of the leaves while they’re otherwise occupied decorating the property for the holidays. (I wonder what Christmas light suprise is in the works for us this year?! - We’ll all have to come by on Friday to find out!) The house also opens for the holiday season on Friday. Come and see how the decorators have interpreted the family’s “favorite things” with a different theme in each room. (For more information about hours, holiday teas, events, and the live music schedule click here)  Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

It’s garden bloggers’ bloom day and I’m distracted from blooms! Not a day went by this summer when I didn’t try to see up the skirt of a bloom with the macro setting on the camera but lately I’m all for the wide angles. Working in the garden I get so focused on the details that just like when I spend too much time in front of the computer, it feels good to stretch my eyes on the distance. (That said, I did look for some perfect close-ups in honor of bloom day - the Enkianthus is not blooming, I know, but isn’t it so bloom-day pretty? As usual, click-on for a larger look)

This has been a long fall so far at Blithewold. We are getting eased into the bare distances of winter. This is the time for gardeners to get a broad look at our gardens and then retreat inside for mind’s eye dreaming. The Annual Garden Design Luncheon is perfectly timed to provide a fresh thought palette for those dreams. Today Douglas Reed (preeminent landscape architect from the firm Reed Hilderbrand in Watertown, MA) spoke to us about designs that fully “connect” us to the place. In his work, Doug evaluates each project site based on its history, the lay of the land and its natural attributes and rather than eradicating any of that (which LAs are perfectly capable of doing) he works to enhance our personal experience within - and looking out from - the site. He talked about how our own childhoods also help to create a connection to a place. Kids spend the first few years taking in and processing their surrounding environment. What we learned then (the shape of a tree, the size of the sky) never leaves us and instead informs how we build and inhabit our adult world. I hadn’t really thought about it that way before! And only yesterday I read an interview (sent as link in comment on yesterday’s post - thanks, Max!) of a California based garden designer who talked about how his Newport childhood influences his work.

As a landscape, Blithewold fits its place in the world (Doug beautifully illustrated this point) and because of the views within and out, we are personally grounded in it. I suspect the Van Wickle/McKee’s probably felt an even deeper connection to the place and worked with the site (not against it!) to create something that felt viscerally familiar to them.

Do you feel that kind of “connected” to your own garden or any other landscape? Do you see childhood views in your gardens/landscapes? I’d love to hear from anyone who attended today’s luncheon - don’t be shy! - and I put the question out as a possible meme too if any fellow bloggers feel tempted to write a full post… (Please put a link in a comment so we’ll all know if and where the conversation continues!)

I have this unreasonable - not dread exactly - worry maybe about the approach of winter. I have to keep reminding myself that there are still colors in the winter. I will find them… I know I will! But I keep thinking “the monochrome is coming the monochrome is coming!” and I run around madly trying to glue all of the fall color - every leaf - to my mind’s eye for safe keeping. Good thing I have a camera.

This morning I startled a deer and he hightailed it (Hey! so that’s where that expression comes from!) across the great lawn before I could unholster my camera. Quick Draw McGraw I’m not.

The Maidenhair tree (Gingko biloba) was looking especially gorgeous today so I went in for a close up forgetting the vomit smelling fruit underfoot… Oh well. To me, the picture’s worth a 1000 stinks.

The Franklinia is exhibiting a delicate range of colors - it’s hard to believe this beauty is extinct in the wild - Thank goodness it’s not gone forever from our gardens too. (Plant one!)

The Tupelo is almost done.

But the maples still have a ways to go…

And I bid a fond farewell today to my favorite cutting garden plant (Asclepias physocarpa ‘Oscar’) and some Salvia vanhoutiis (carted off in a red hat lady color combo) from the Idea Beds. Our killing frost is forecast for tonight…