There's
nothing like a deadline to make you focus on the job at hand.
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Spring did not cooperate this
year. Everything is behind. |
This has
been a busy spring with much travel. It has also been a spring featuring lots
of rotten weather – and especially cold. But on June 18 – less than two weeks
from today - docents from Arnold Arboretum are coming to get a look at a
genuine 'Homegrown National Park', and my garden has to be ready.
The offer
to host the group was made last summer when Chris McArdle – herself one of
those docents and the subject of my essay on Witch Hazel back in March – came
to my home to see what a native plant garden could look like if it was fed a diet
of steroids. She went away sufficiently
impressed to mention it to her peers. Chris asked if she could bring them to
the garden for an outing and I was flattered enough to say, ‘Sure!’ and to
agree to a mid-June date.
And, it
isn’t that the garden shouldn’t be ready for inspection by outsiders. It’s
just that the combination of cold weather that lingered into May and the aforementioned
travel conspired to keep me out of the garden for its annual spring maintenance.
As recently as last Saturday, the high for the day was 46 degrees and the ‘real-feel’
temperature was 38. Oh, and the rain was
falling sideways because of the 30 mph winds.
Tuesday was
one of the handful of 'perfect' days for outside gardening work. I focused on
two 'big' projects: the Pennsylvania flagstone patio that has mostly moss
between stones to help keep rainfall on the property; and the
'inner walk'
through the rear garden. The patio needs to be cleared of excess moss and
uninvited plants every other year. The inner path attracts ‘opportunistic’
ferns and other 'cute' plants that want to inhibit travel. It also allows me to
see what shrubs and perennials are growing into one another - and take
appropriate action. The photos at right show 'before' and 'after'. Tuesday
was a long but productive day: work started at 10 a.m. and wrapped up at 5:30.
I finished
the back of the garden today. And, I hope
it is docent ready. This is a shade garden with all the good and bad things it
connotes. The sunniest part is planted in high-bush blueberries, Aronia, and an
Amelanchier (shadbush). Those parts were
easy: stop tree “A” from growing into the light needed for shrub “B”. Loppers and Felcos made the work go quickly.
Not at all
easy was the rear garden’s ‘outer walk’. It was lightly used last year and so got no
maintenance. As the "before and after" photo above indicates, the neglect showed.
The portion
of the rear garden behind the house (and so, shading the garden) is anchored by
three Viburnum - two of them 'Winterthur' and the other 'Wavecrest'; and a
remarkable Chamaceyparis called 'Snow' because its new growth comes out white
and gradually acquires green pigment (see photo and inset at right). The four shrubs were originally planned
to be kept at a height not to exceed five feet so there would be an
unobstructed view from the screened porch of the entire garden. The first time
'Winterthur' bloomed, it was so startling - entirely blanketed in white flowers
- the decision was made to allow it to grow. It seemed to have stopped at ten
feet and the two 'Winterthurs' have grown together to form a single massive
clump.
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| The inner path, restored |
I did the
work on one, long morning (under 85 degree temps but thankfully low humidity).
I completed the outer path, which winds between the Viburnums and blueberries,
and shows off the native plantings - Zizia aurea (golden Alexander), wood
asters, Ageratina altissima (White Snakeroot), Aruncus dioicus (Goats beard) -
that merge into the woodlands. The path then winds up to the patio (also shown
a few days ago) and then to the Podophyllum peltatum (Mayapple) path to the
front garden.
This
weekend, I start work on the main body of the front garden. I suspect much of
that project will be done at sunrise and sunset.
I hope the
docents appreciate my work.
