Lessons Learned from Some Great Ct.Gardeners

Thu, Jun 29, 06 at 22:05

Just returned from Ct. nurseries/gdn tours Bday trip. Saw many beautifully grown plants and beautifully designed gardens , of both GW members and Garden Conservancy Open Days tour gardens. Wanted to share a few unrelated high points/notable lessons learned -from these great Ct. gardeners: George , Ego 45, grows lilies up through shrubs like rhodos. No need to stake them, as the shrubs hold up the tall lily stems! Have a row of dead or unwanted yews or other shrubs? He has cut down a row of dead yews and left 3' of their height. They now supply the framework/support for a row of shizophragma hydr. moonlight which he is training up them to form a floral wall.
Sue W, VTSKIERS, shows how unbelievably- happy- hostas can be rhodo substitutes in the garden! hugest i've ever seen.she also has a hakonechloa aureo marg. growing in a 3' fully circular mound- another elegant rhodo stand-in!! Faithfully keeping current with her membership in the Zone-Denial Club, she is successfully growing her banana tree in a hot pocket created by her garage wall and her full-sun heat-reflective patio.
Monique has clematis growing up every type of deciduous shrub, and though they are planted near the very core/trunk of the shrub, they still come up through the shrub and flower like crazy. She and Les have concocted a BRILLIANT technique for hiding an ugly chain link or woven vinyl fence. Over the internet, they ordered fake xmas tree branches and they wove them vertically into the fence. seen from a distance as it is, you have no clue what you are looking at, only that there appears to be an attractive green backdrop to their amazing garden beds! They have also made a handsome 'trough garden' out of the bowl of a cement bird bath that broke off below the bowl.
Ellen Sonnenfroh has changed my way of thinking about designing with hostas. Her extensive rural property is filled with many LARGE hosta sweeps of ONE CULTIVAR each.The visual impact of just ONE leaf pattern- is stunning.Even though my property is miniscule in comparison, I plan to replant all my hostas in patches of one pattern whenever possible. no more 'Pot 'n Dot' for me. She also demonstrates that sometimes plant happiness makes absolutely NO SENSE- as when you see her very healthy happy patches of sedum autumn joy, hostas and astilbes- all growing right next to each other!!! in a solid-packed bed mulched with wood chips and under a deciduous tree.with no in-ground watering system. go figure!
Linda Allard's garden designer has interplanted climbing roses with clematis- up pergola columns.
In the Brush Hills gardens of Charles Robinson, he has ingeniously "hidden" garden sprinkler heads on top of 10-12' tall homemade plant obelisks made from steamed oak lath that is painted with protective coats of fiberglass.

New Thoughts about Coppicing


There are 3 woody plants with which I have practiced yearly coppicing: Catalpa Aurea, Physocarpus Diablo, and Cotinus Coggyria- GRace and Palace Purple.This year I did not coppice the cotinus or the catalpa, and I am thrilled with the results- for the first time- ta da!- FLOWERS!! and such striking ones at that! now, the plants are, of course, bigger than in coppicing years- but in their particular spots, this is fine.the plants each provide a strong color beacon that really pays off as you approach them.I have seen the handsome flowers that can result when physocarp. are not heavily pruned and I think I prefer the look to the no-flowers one.So I'm thinking that I will coppice my catalpa ,physocarpus and cotinus every OTHER year, so i get beaut flowers one year and still maintain for them a habit of dense tight growth.

IMAGINE MY SURPRISE


So, my beloved partner in all things AND gardening, Dudley, and I , were sitting at late dinner tonight …after planting a few shrubs and trees and perennials … after Dudley had returned from a day of golf… after our morning spent planting. Just 10 days ago, we returned from our yearly nursery touring B’day trip to Ct. with a steamed-windows-van packed so full that pots were nestled on pots and the top 3’ of a 12’ tree stretched discretely between our seats so we could barely move, much less SEE out the rearview mirror. The past 10 days have flown by with a wide diversity of activities: thinking about where to put things in the garden, making lists of where to put things in the garden, researching the special needs of new plants to be planted in the garden, re-thinking where to put things in the garden, making new lists of where to put things in the garden, planting in the garden, digging up new plants just planted in the garden and rotating them or repositioning them in their holes and replanting them in the garden, digging up those things just planted and re-locating them entirely in the garden, digging up things that were planted earlier in the garden ( yesterday or last year or 10 years ago) and moving them to entirely new places in the garden, revising the lists of where to put things in the garden, planting in the garden, watering and staking what’s just been planted in the garden, and so many more varied activities. So, as Dudley and I were finishing our late night dinner, after I had finished telling him about the day’s plantings, imagine my surprise when he hesitatingly said, “Mindy, I think you need to get a little less intense about this planting stuff.” Now, tell me, dear friends, whatever could he mean?