~Grandmother Never Bought a Plant~
I suppose that is not literally true since in the beginning she bought vegetables and fruits for eating and then used their seeds to start plants.
Grandmother's garden was filled with many plants--I wish I could remember all of them--including Sweet Gum, Peach, Fig, Weeping Willow, and Magnolia trees; white and blue Hydrangeas, Azaleas, various Roses, Bleeding Hearts, Ferns, Periwinkle; Weigelia, Privet, and Barberry shrubs; succulents, and a vegetable garden.
Grandmother's garden was developed from "found" items, so to speak. My grandmother knew that plants could be started from the seeds they produced (no sterile hybrids for her). She also exchanged plants and cuttings with her neighbors. If she liked a plant, she made as many as she wanted from cuttings or seeds. Her neighborhood was filled with open fields (nowadays, almost gone for the rest of us), and these areas were great places to find plants.
Obviously, one of the things my grandmother brought to this garden and learned from it--was patience. In this era of instant gratification, we forget that good things are worth the wait, that patience really is a virtue, and that there is nothing wrong with frugality, either!
~Biographies~
*My grandmother started me down the garden path and Gertrude and Jim push me along. I do know that while all my mentors are deceased, I hear their voices loud and clear -- know the environment in which you want to garden, gardening is hard work, gardens take time to develop, start plants from cuttings, and that nature is not always on our side. In other words, be realistic, be frugal, and have patience.
*Gertrude Jekyll (1843 - 1932; photogragh from her book: Colour Schemes for the Flower Garden) has had the most pronounced influence on English and American gardening. She studied the landscape and designed flower borders, woodlands, and specimen tree and shrubery placement with regard to color, vista, soil, and year-round pleasure. Gertrude Jekyll approached the garden as a canvas. It has been said that Monet planted his gardens to paint them while Gertrude Jekyll's garden was the painting.
*James Underwood Crockett (1915 - 1979; photograph from his book: Crockett's Victory Garden) was the original host of PBS's The Victory Garden, then called Crockett's Victory Garden. I was fortunate to see his weekly shows. He showed that while gardening was work, it was also enjoyable with great rewards. While reading gardening books is informative, it was great to see and hear a gardener in action and see the results. It was good for morale! Jim made a statement on a show about asters that has become famous in my family because not only does it apply to gardening -- it applies to many things in life: Life is too short to stake asters.
*Painting of a child who reminds me of myself and grandmother in her garden: Monet - The Artist's Garden at Vetheuil.
~Gardening in Connecticut~
The Ice Age was not a good thing for gardeners in this area. On its march to Long Island and the sea, the glacier removed the soil down the bedrock and then when it melted, it dropped terminal moraine (rocks) in its wake -- except for southern Long Island where it was nice enough to deposit a glacial outwash plain (sand).
My family gardened on Long Island. When I moved to Connecticut and wanted to garden, I bought a shovel. What did I know? Quickly after that, my husband bought a pick axe.
Gardening here means "digging" out rocks and then going off to buy a truckload of topsoil--and while you are at it: sharp (not play or all-purpose) sand, and a ton of peat moss--to fill in the holes so that your plants may live long and prosper.
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I haven't been posting for a while mainly due to the heat interfering with my gardening stamina.
Deer ate some new tips on some of my perennials--he, she, or they, reached in over the three-foot turkey wire fence we had put around the Cottage Garden. We have plans for putting a taller fence (probably that green "deer mesh" fencing) in the back. I am looking into various deer sprays (non-smelly) and some deer repellent granules. Two that have good reviews are Deer Scram (granules) and Deer Stopper (spray). I did buy some Deer No-No "cakes" that you hang near the plants to be protected. They are quite expensive. I hope they work. They will be used with the spray and granule methods, as soon as I get organized.
I am still working on the next iteration of perennial placement in the Cottage Garden. I hope it will be mostly right. The problem is that however much I investigate, until the plant gets planted in my garden and I see how it grows, and do I really like it, it is just a "maybe", and the iterive process continues...
I still cannot find the right plant (even as a trisl) for the bottom end of the garden. I really think I need a small shrub, but can't find one that I like there. Perhaps a Butterfly Bush that doesn't grown taller than five-feet? I like lota of shrubs but not for this spot. Well, this too continues...
We have been buying lots of red slabs from Home Depot to make mowing strips for the gardens behind the den and living room. They make a nice edge but they will only br done in this area. After a while, the cost mounts and we are tired of setting slabs, anyway.
We started to put Belgium blocks around the driveway. We had some left over from a scrapped project. Unfortunately, we did not have enough and for the mo', Home Depot is out also.
I did buy another plant from HD: Rudbeckia hirta 'Irish Spring', It's very pretty with a cream-color eye...
. I planted it in the Den Garden to somewhat balance the Helenium 'Mardi Gras'. Photo from HD Garden Site.
The weather has become hot and dry, and the weeds are as high as an elephant's eye. Between my non-gardening life and all the landscaping organization I have been trying to do, the weeds in my Cottage Garden have been having a "field" day (no pun indended-- I think). My helper has pulled the weeds in the landscaping area in the front of the house and he keeps the grass under control, but I am still in charge of the weeds in the flower gardens.
Yesterday, I started to weed in earnest. It will take a while since I can only work before and after the sun is on the garden. Oh well, I always have been a neglectful weeder. I would like to use my helper, but he doesn't always know weeds from plants, so I have to watch him carefully and to use him in areas where he can't go too wrong. I think that by the end of this season, he will be much improved. It also doesn't help that his English in minimal and my Spanish doesn't include enough gardening terms!
My Clematis 'Jackmanii ' is blooming like crazy -- what a gorgeous flower. Next summer I will have to work out a true trellis for it. This summer I have it growing over tall branches stuck in the ground. I am waiting for my other clematis to start to grow strongly.
A couple of Filipendula venustra from the old garden have decided to grow. One is in a good spot; the other will be moved next to it in the fall. Also Lysimachia clethroides (Goose-Neck Loosestrife) has made a big massed display in one of the old gardens, and an old pink phlox (named unknown) has appeared. That plant too, will be moved.
Enough for today -- time for a bubble bath and to move on.
The Cottage Garden is doing well, except for the weeds that are growing too quickly in some areas.
I bought a Helenium 'Mardi Gras' 
from Home Depot last week and finally planted it. The flowers are very striking and the plant is an upright type. Obviously, the flowers make the plant. (Photo from Home Depot Garden Club.) I was going to put this plant in the Cottage Garden but since I have decided that no more plants will go there until I work out the new garden plan, I planted it in the Den Gardenette. I had a nice spot since we took down "Dwarf" Alberta spruce. I probably will leave it there. It adds nice color to the garden.
I have decided that the only way to bring the Cottage Garden into line, is to plan it from scratch as if there are no plants in it. This will insure that I get the plants I want in the spots that I want. After this is drawn up, I can decide which of the plants that are already in the garden can stay where they are and which have to be moved. I tried "merging" the new plants that I want with what is there already, but it doesn't work.
When my landscaping helper came yesterday, I decided to have him work on edging the parking area of our driveway with Belgium blocks 
. This went very slowly due to having to neated the edge first. I was disappointed that he didn't finish the back edge of 33 feet; thus the area now looks more ragged that before. Hopefully, it will be finished soon. I want to plant blue Siberian irises behind the back edge.
The plant department needs to be "pulled together". Doesn't anbody there pay attention to what is being put out?
Once again, a very large amount of a certain plant with NO name tag, just a generic tag for generic perennials! I asked in the garden shop if anyone knew the name of the plant and no one did. I knew that the plant looked so much like an eryngium 
that it most assuredly was, but I wanted to know "which one". The plant code just went to a generic perennial page on the Garden Club website! Ye Gad!!!
Adding to that-- one register was held up because there was no barcode on the plant the person wanted to buy (or nothing came up in the computer), and HD was having a hard time finding someone who would know.
And, the scanner on the other register was broken and was waiting to be fixed!
Anybody there know how to run a business?
And, don't get me started on the Paint department and trying to get a paint color mixed!
As I was planning the areas to be planted, I realized I was confusing myself because I wasn't always calling my various gardens and gardenettes by a unique name because I couldn't remember them! Then I remembered in Gertrude's book (yes, we are on a first name basis) her garden areas had names, and I remembered that other gardens I have visited had "named" gardens. Well, of course, areas have name designations throughout the world -- so why not my garden? I had sort-of given names to areas, but as I found out, I keep inadvertently changing them. Sometimes, the light bulb takes a long time to go on ...
OK, time to pick names and stick with them! The important thing here is that the name must make a good fit so that I (and the rest of my family) can remember it. I love the phrase cottage garden but I do not have a cottage. What I do have, though, is a gazebo...and it just turns out that the gazebo is at the end of the "summer perennial border" and could be considered the "cottage" for the garden. Thus I do have a cottage garden. Besides, I once read that the definition of cottage garden was "controlled chaos" -- I just love that phrase and it fits my garden to a "T".
~~Official Name-- I hearby rename the "summer perennial border" (and all its various alias) The Cottage Garden.
Well, that wasn't too bad... so moving right along (as Fozzy used to say)...
The other side of the original perennial bed oval may have a perennial or two, but will mainly have shrubs. Now, I have other shrub areas, so I need something specific... hmmmm...
~~Official Name-- The shrub area facing the Cottage Garden will be the Cottage Shrub Border. This name does not exactly trip off the tongue, but it is consistent.
I thought it was time to add a plot plan. This is not the neatest; it really needs to be redrawn, not just scribbled over, but at least I have this.
The area with the copper beech as its focal point will be known as the Copper Beech Garden (very catchy).
There are areas not on this drawing in the back yard : the Porch Garden, the Den Garden, the Linden Garden, the Greenhouse Garden, and others that have no names yet, or names that change daily!
Enough of this -- I am exhausted! Thank you for bearing with me. This blog was basically for me to help organize my thoughts.
While I mull over the patio area in front of the gazebo, and about five other perennial/shrub "gardenettes", I will also mull over the plants for the new area opened up in the Copper Beach Garden.
I had my gardening helper move the brick blocks in the back of the area out about 4 feet. The new edge tapers some to 3 ft. The new area is about 22 feet long and filled with topsoil from Lee's Nursery. The brick blocks are cement blocks so we filled the hollows with soil to make places for small edging plants.
My husband made a request for day lilies to edge the interior area. I like the day lilies and I think I will add some Siberian iris to extend the bloom time. I buy my day lilies from Gilbert Wild by mail. I usually order the reblooming collection and order a few extra fragrant favorites, such as Hyperion. I have always received good plants from them.
Another trip to Home Depot this Thursday and I only bought one plant -- a white physostegia (Obedient Plant) 'Miss Manners'... 
...The plant looked good, and it was actually on my list! I would like the pink version also, but did not see any. There were some other nice plants in the daisy family, but I decided not to deviate except for something extraordinary.
I just planted it but not in the official perennial border which I have now given the official name: The Cottage Garden (the cottage in this case is the gazebo). I have decided that-- unless I find something really extraordinary-- no more plants will go in this summer season. I really have to get back to my original "controlled chaos cottage garden" design instead of the present "un-controlled chaos cottage garden". It looks very nice, but I have lost the spots for some of the plants that I really do want. This also means that I will have to order some plants through the mail in the spring (perhaps even this fall) and travel (by car) farther afield for my plants. I also planted three Asiatic lilies that I bought from HD in the Copper Beach Garden.
Perhaps I should fix part of the future Cottage Shrub Border for ad-hoc perennials? This way I can have my cake and eat it too. I will have to remove a lot of weeds and then turn over and amend the soil in a section. The shrubs that have survived in it are doing well and I think that shrubs can take more "abusive" soil than perennials. anyway.
I have a great spot near to the door of the greenhouse where I have tried to grow a kerria (Kerria japonica 'Pleniflora')...
... I love that shrub but I have never found a spot that it likes, so I am giving up, at least for the mo'. A butterfly bush has planted itself (literally) there and I will leave it. At least, I will have some shrub there. I assume if the shrub grew itself there, it will survive there. Someday, somewhere, I will have a kerria. The other shrub that doesn't seem to like me is mock orange (Philadelphus 'Snowbelle')... 
...On my second try for the right spot I planted it in the back row of the Cottage Garden. At least, it bloomed! It still looks rather straggly though.
Speaking of shrubs, last week Home Depot had a few I liked but I didn't want to get sidetracked from my perennials. Of course, when I went this week, they were all gone.
On this trip to HD I did get info on the delphinium that I bought last week without a plant sticker: Delphinum elatum 'Guardian Blue' and the most magnificant shade of blue it is..
...
Many bugs and creepy crawlers are in the great outdoors these days, so I haven't been going out much, and besides the heat/sun does me in quickly. One only needs one serious bout of heat exhaustion (about 10 years ago) to learn to avoid the heat. Also, knowing people with skin cancer, can also smarten you up in a hurry.
Photos from the Home Depot Garden Club site.
. I planted it in the Den Garden to somewhat balance the Helenium 'Mardi Gras'. Photo from HD Garden Site.
