Category Archives: Gardening

My eyes had been watching the Lenten rose outside our bedroom window for a few weeks now – ever since the snow melted actually. It’s trampled mound of evergreen foliage had remained a vibrant green throughout the winter, and was the only spot of color for quite some time. New growth would emerge in a reddish-tinged maroon color that matched the flower color, before slowly turning green. I was watching the oak leaves that covered the plant for signed of movement, hinting at life beneath, but it took a day of rain to push them completely to the side. 

This is how our garden wakes each spring – fed from the rain and ignited by the warmer days – yet every year it thrills as if happening for the very first time. The doldrums of winter can harden the warmest hearts. 

As much as many hate the rain, and it’s admittedly not my favorite weather event, it’s still a vital part of the life-cycle of the garden – a regular requirement for things to grow. At this time of the year, it jump-starts the appearance of these flower buds, promising nourishment and sustenance – promising the end of a barren winter. 

This red variety of Witch Hazel has always proved more elusive than its yellow sibling, and both are extremely welcome at this desperate time of the year. Maybe it’s just as common, and I simply don’t notice it as much for its darker color, the way more subtle things blend into the background, while something as loud as yellow simply screams for attention, especially beneath a sun and against a blue sky. 

One of the very first harbingers of spring, Witch Hazel usually blooms before winter is properly done, and I love it for such daring audacity. Not even the crocus or snowdrops are out yet, but a little snow won’t stop a Witch from showing off. 

Don’t get me wrong – despite the tease of spring-like temperature we had this week, winter is far from over. Her worst bite usually comes at the very end – and sometimes beyond – as she lashes out with snowstorms and ice and wind and freezing temps that are better-suited to January. Winter is harsh that way, and some years she simply won’t go away without some interring talk-back. 

In the end, though, she will lose. Spring will return – however brief or boisterous or beautiful – and then summer will be on her heels. It will be as if winter never was. For now, as the snow melts around the plants that were felled in the fall, we see some of winter’s destruction, and some of summer’s invincibility. These carcasses of tomatoes that lingered into the fall have somehow survived more or less intact, and likely hold viable seeds beneath their withered skin. These particular varieties proved temperamental, so we will probably fill their former pots with the cherry tomatoes that performed such powerhouse feats of fruition. Successful gardening depends on adapting and listening to the stories that the plants share. Every year there are new lessons to learn, and new tales to hear told. 

Rosa rugosa is one hardy garden performer. Any plant that can hold its own against salt spray and the ravages of coastal weather is inherently rugged, but that doesn’t always translate into a garden situation. It also means that if not pruned or properly cared for, it can grow a little rough around the edges. Thankfully, I have one specimen by our pool – a substitute of solace for not being able to make it to Ogunquit in the past few years – and it has reliably bloomed and produced a healthy fountain of foliage each season. 

This plant has at least four seasons of splendor in it – the first flush of fresh and bright green foliage, the main summer show of pink, sweetly-perfumed rose blooms, the small persimmon-like fruits of late summer, and the spectacular golden fireworks exploding right now. 

That’s a powerhouse performer, and more than makes up for its thornier aspects (it would seem that no other rose has as many barbs on a single stem). I like a plant that’s a little prickly; I can totally relate. 

Having put the gardens to bed a while ago, and the pool to sleep just a few days ago, a surprise morning glory bloom (before the snowstorm and hard freeze we had) deigned to remind us of the not-so-distant past, yet it already feels so far away. Both Andy and I are entertaining a countdown until spring, and maybe it’s a little soon for that, but time is flying these days, and a chart of weeks for the next four to five months – something to bring us into March – may be the tonic to bring us a happy and surmountable schedule of anticipation. 

In one of the more dreary months of the calendar year, remembering summer mornings filled with these glorious blooms is one lovely way to past a gray day. Spring will come again. And summer will be right behind it. In the meantime, a trove of memories exists, here and in our minds, to bring a little bit of summer to every day. 

Not content to let the fall go out without a blaze of glory, this lovely lace-leafed Japanese maple set itself on gorgeous fire these past few days, illuminating its backyard space for a finale fit for a queen. This little tree is approaching two decades of reliable performance, a long time span over which it has slowly but steadily increased its spread and weeping beauty. It started off about two feet in circumference, and now extends its elegantly drooping branches a good ten feet beyond that.

It was a bargain buy at the end of a summer season sale at Hewitt’s, and it came in a tight burlap root sack that was cutting into its bark. I wasn’t sure it would survive, and for the first few years it didn’t do much in the way of top growth, but underneath the amended ground something was working. It began to gradually increase its width and the girth of its trunk, imperceptibly at first, and only in the past couple of years did I take true notice of its extensive expansion, and quite happily at that. There’s nothing quite like the loveliness of a plant finally finding comfort in its home.

This climbing hydrangea usually claims its glory in late spring when it’s covered in lace-like umbrellas of sweetly-scented blooms. They sprinkle their lovely perfume about the backyard just as we are usually opening the pool – the most magical and hopeful time of the year. Their show lasts a good while, it not usually being too terribly hot at that point to quickly wilt and diminish the delicate blossoms – and then the handsome foliage remains lush and green for the duration of the summer. They will appreciate regular watering if conditions get hot and dry (there is such a long way for the water to travel, and the vines wind their way up a good forty feet). 

Happily, their show doesn’t end then – this one likes to go out in a column of fiery sunlight, golden yellow flames licking all the way up the length of its commingling with an ancient pine tree. When the afternoon sunlight pours through the bright foliage, it could be argued that this is a greater show than its late spring bloom. Fall has its powers too, and they are not to be underestimated. 

Some might say there is more magic and enchantment to be found in the unexpected beauty at hand this late in the season. I don’t have a strong argument against that, and it is always the present moment that seems to have the most pull. 

These beautiful Japanese painted ferns overcame their own 2020 horror story, as early on in the summer season some animal ate them down to the ground. As evidenced here, they recovered in a valiant, and gorgeous, show of defiance and resilience. The afternoon sun of October shows them off to great splendor, and is a reminder that somehow nature endures, no matter how much awfulness humans, and non-humans, may attempt to inflict.

The Japanese painted fern’s delicate beauty belies its hardiness. From a single small specimen planted several years ago, this clumps has expanded, notably by spores – popping up in damp unexpected places (such as around the pool pump) and I’ve managed to transplant them successfully. A couple now populate the side yard garden, lending an additional Japanese element to a space now planted with bamboo, Japanese aralia, and a Japanese maple. It is the peaceful portion of our yard, shaded from the hot afternoon sun, filled with subtle performers who express themselves in soft shades of green and architectural interest rather than boffo-blooms of hot pink or fiery orange. That sort of quiet and respite is necessary in the summer months.

The flowers always come more vibrantly at this time of the year, as if sensing their limited time before a hard frost kills them off permanently. Such is the case with these volunteer morning glories. They’ve been self-seeding so prolifically and for so long that they’ve become a bit of a nuisance, so this year I pulled most of them out in part of the clearing and editing process that marked much of our garden efforts. I left a few vines to climb through the Korean lilac and Joe Pye Weed, and here are some of the results. 

For better or worse, morning glories remind me of the earliest bit of fall – that tense time when school is about to begin and we plunge into the routine of routine again, returning to schedules and time constraints that seemed so much more bearable under the sun of summer. This year fall looks a little different, and we are all still adjusting.

In the meantime, the morning glories are giving out one final show, reminding us that there is beauty in the world, even as we approach winter…

This magnificent lace-leaf philodendron was a quick, unplanned purchase in late spring. After several less-than-stellar investments in this large pot (failed junipers, evergreens, and red-twigged dogwoods) I didn’t bother with anything other than a common home-improvement store specimen, which was only about a foot and a half tall.

Now it’s about three feet high and five to six feet wide after a successful summer on the sunny front porch, lots of water and plant food, and just a touch of love. I texted around and finally found someone willing to take it in before the first hard frost withers it to the ground. My pal Heath picked it up and will try to transition it into indoor life. I’m just thankful it has a chance. We don’t have the room or the light for it, and it’s too beautiful and doing too well to simply give up on it. 

It’s also rather valuable – I saw two philodendrons at Faddegon’s of roughly the same size and stature – one was $187 and the other was $247! That means this will double as Heath’s birthday present, whether he knows it or not.