Down the garden path ...

Down the garden path ...
...and strolling through a garden of memories

~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!

~Gertrude Jekyll, Jim Crockett, Grandmother, & I~

~Gertrude Jekyll, Jim Crockett, Grandmother, & I~

~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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Tuesday, July 3, 2012

Oh Dear! ...a deer!

July 2, 2012....
Deer came through, probably early this morning, ate flowers of Joe Pye Weed –thought it didn’t like this plant! I hate deer, woodchucks, and snakes! Gardening certainly has many challenges.
My Filipendula-Queen of the Prairie, is doing well. This is a “returnee” from my original garden of many moons ago. ....
Returnees: Filipendula growing next to a Ligularia.
A few others are also hanging in and probably more are trying but since I don’t recognize the leaves for the most part, they probably have been pulled as weeds. Such is life when you let a garden go to rack and ruin and then decide to re-establish it! Those remaining are: Malva, peony, Ligularia, Siberian and some German  iris, common variety orange day lily, periwinkle, a couple of privet hedge, some hybrid day lilies, a couple of the many lilies I planted, blue hydrangeas-snowball and Lacecap, Monarda, yucca, tall grass-Miscanthus- I think.
I bought some plants from Wayside’s the “end of spring” sale. It is always problematic ordering when it is almost summer. The plants looked pretty good. I ordered a delphinium and thought that that might not work out and didn’t. The plant died so I am getting a credit. I think late summer-early fall, I will order the same plants from Wayside, LazyS, and maybe Bluestone—doing some comparison shopping between mail order companies.
Speaking of mail-order buying—I like many hard-to-find plants but without doing a lot of traveling around, so I resort to mail-order. I really prefer to see and pick my own plants, but I also do not like to travel far as much as I used to do. I always mail-ordered as well, even then. Personally, I don’t find quite the same “quality” or “handling” (I can’t find the right word) as in the past and many of the nurseries have gone out of business or were bought out. I used to order from a nursery in Ohio (?) called “The Garden Place” –what a variety and quality. The plants came bare-rooted but each one was perfect. I do buy potted plants from Home Depot (Norwalk or Fairfield), Perennial Gardens (Bedford, NY), Reynolds (Norwalk), and last year from Costco (Norwalk). Of course, buying potted plants can still be “iffy” as many plants seem to be growing well but turn out to be pot-bound and have a bit of a struggle getting reestablished in a garden. OK, enough of this ...
I planted Monarda Jacob Kline last year after hearing wonderful things about the plant. It was nice but I didn’t see what all the hoopla was about—but this year—WOW. We have some strong breezes coming across the property sometimes, and I had to do a loose twine “corset” around the plant. The stalks are at least 4 foot tall now.
Monarda Jacob Kline
I have decided to buy a tape recorder so that when I go into the garden it will be easy to “make notes” to be transcribed later.
Off to Home Depot shortly—hope I find something nice since my garden helper is coming tomorrow and he can help me plant them. I like bright and strong colors mostly, so I think some Rubeckia would be a good choice.
Posted by Iris March at 9:00 AM

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