You Can Go Home Again (But You Probably Shouldn't)

I’ve been thinking these past few weeks about the inevitability of change. 

It started last month when Betty and I visited Bedrock Gardens, which is easily the most visually intriguing garden in New England.  Located in Lee, New Hampshire, it sprawls across more than 30 acres and is created from equal parts intelligence and whimsy.  Its creator, Jill Nooney, has filled it with plant combinations that challenge the imagination, and garden art – sculptures forged from century-old industrial detritus – that inspire both laughter and thought.

She and husband Bob Munger have been working on the garden for roughly 30 years.  It is a labor of love in every sense of the word and I have enjoyed watching it grow and mature.  But Jill and Bob have been on this earth, by their own admission, for a combined 135 years.  What happens when they can no longer care for the garden?

The perennial border at Great Dixter.
Sir Christopher Lloyd left us nine
years ago but his garden is still alive

The late eminent English gardener, Christopher Lloyd, is credited with the wisdom “The garden dies when the gardener dies”.  Lloyd’s home, Great Dixter, was still going strong the last time I was in East Sussex so, perhaps, death does not bring down the curtain on every garden.  An entity called the Great Dixter Trust is charged with preserving the garden for generations to come.  Looking to the future, Bedrock Gardens has similarly established a non-profit entity to help fund the preservation of that treasure.

Which brings me to the fate of a much smaller garden; one with much more limited notoriety: the one Betty and I created at our last home.

As everyone knows, we downsized this year; moving from a Colonial on Steroids on one side of town to a brand new 2100-square-foot jewel of a home on the other side.  In a perfect world (meaning one where money was no object), we would have stayed put on our same piece of land and built that smaller house.  The reason we would have stayed involved great views, terrific neighbors, and a garden that provided vast and continuing pleasure to us.

Our gardens, though extensive, covered
less than half of our land.  The rest was
a woodland we restored

We sold our home to a couple with two young children.  They loved the site, loved the pond view and shared our thoughts about pesticide-free lawns.  The garden was buried under several feet of snow when we accepted their offer in February.  We invited them over to take a tour of the garden as soon as the snow melted so that that we could identify some of the very unusual trees, shrubs, and perennials in it.  They demurred, citing family demands.

When we closed on the house in April we reiterated the offer – a hands-on walk-through so that they wouldn’t accidentally cut down a rare specimen.  They thanked us but said the pressure of packing and the impending sale of their own home made it impossible.  A few weeks later we passed along another invitation through our Realtor.  Again, regrets.

Then, three weeks ago, we stopped by to see one of our former neighbors and saw the beginning of the transformation: a small copse of pines and oaks at the front of the property was gone.  For us, it had provided desired privacy; we were part of our small neighborhood yet secluded.  At the edge of the copse we had planted a number of specimen trees and shrubs.  Most of those were also gone.

Beyond our house was an acre of oaks
and pines.  The new owners have
cleared it.

Last week, we were again at our former neighbors’ home.  This time we saw that our ‘forest’ had disappeared.

We had nearly two acres at our previous home, but we gardened only one of them.  The other acre was maintained as a forest preserve, primarily of oak and pine.  Over the years we had painstakingly removed invasive plants and fostered native ferns, wildflowers and ephemerals.  The forest floor was comprised of a rich duff and slowly composting leaves.  When tree limbs broke off in storms, they lay where they fell. Because it adjoined town conservation land, our forest was full of wildlife and was a wonderful habitat, especially for birds.  Now, it had been clear-cut; with massive logs from beautiful, mature oaks stacked like cordwood waiting to be taken away. 

This is all that remains of the forest

Naturalist Doug Tallamy tells us that a single oak tree supports 500 species of moths.  Those moths feed birds and pollinate plants, which beautify our world while playing an important part in the cycle of life on which we ultimately depend.  The dozen or more oaks in our forest are gone, likely to be replaced by a lawn suitable for young children.

We understand we ceded the right to dictate how our property could be used the moment we signed the papers passing title to it.  As long as they obey zoning ordinances, the new owners are entitled to whatever they wish to the land.  They have paid for the privilege.

But it does not stop us from mourning – and ‘mourning’ is the right word – the passing of those woods and, likely in time, the rest of the garden. 

Sir Christopher got it only partly right: a garden does not necessarily die when the gardener dies, but a change of ownership will almost certainly do the trick. 

The Class of 2012

That's me at Great Dixter, providing
scale to one of Christopher Lloyd's
container garden groupings

You can blame it in Christopher Lloyd.  No, not the mad scientist of Back to the Future; the other Christopher Lloyd, who made Great Dixter a ‘worth-a-journey’ garden in East Sussex.  Betty and I were there in May 2004 and it was on that day that Betty fell in love with container gardening.  And, not just pots with multiple kinds of flowering annals in them, but the idea of massing containers to create portable landscapes.  That’s me, at Great Dixter, providing scale for one of Lloyd’s compositions. (Double-click on any image to see it at full-screen size.)

This container is on our back
deck, and consists of coleus,
supertunias, a red grass and a
flowering maple.

And so each year we observe a ritual around our garden.  In early May, we go into our basement and retrieve maybe a dozen beautiful large pots from our collection.  We place them in the turnaround of our driveway.  Betty then goes off in search of annuals and perennials to fill them.  She creates a dozen exquisite containers; they are sited according to their color and texture.  We also pull another dozen plant-bearing containers that we have overwintered in our garage (a subject explored in depth in ‘The January Thaw’).  These containers, too, are placed around the property.  Once those two dozen containers are completed, Betty pronounces herself satisfied.  She is done for the year.

There are more than a dozen
containers in this grouping,
providing a seamless transition
between our driveway and a
perennial garden.

But there is more to the ritual.  When she is done I point to the leftover annuals and perennials that were not used in the creation of those containers and say it is a shame that we can’t have a few more.  After giving me her ‘why do you do this to me’ look, we go down into the basement and pull up a few more pots. 

At the same time, Betty does roughly six container gardening presentations for garden clubs and civic organizations (not including two at the Boston Flower & Garden Show this year).  Each demonstration requires that she put together five such containers.  She purchases more plants plus the lightweight pots that she uses for “road work”.  Inevitably, she brings home a few pots that she later judges to be “too heavy” or “not right” for her demonstrations.  She inevitably buys more plants than she will need for a demonstration in order to have exactly the right 'look' for the containers in her demonstration.  Oh, and she will go to sales when quality garden centers such as Andrew’s, Weston and Russell’s start marking down their plant.

Containers, many using
succulents, soften the sidewalk
and vary its width.

I will bring the preamble of this piece to a merciful conclusion:  right now, there are 61 containers scattered around our property.  Christopher Lloyd would be proud.

There’s a loropetalum that appears to have settled into its container for a long, happy life.  The acuba we purchased in Maryland last year quickly outgrew its container and, in the process of re-potting it, Betty found a daughter shrub which now has its own pot.  Our crape myrtle and Cape plumbago also are thriving in seasonal glory; Zone 8 shrubs summering in a Zone 5B world.

On the front porch, five containers
provide a mix of formal and
informal elements.

But it is the mixed containers that are the ‘wow’ part of the collection.  Now that July is here, they are in prolific flower and visitors can see what Betty had in mind when she first started putting plants together two months ago.  We are still mixing containers to provide height and texture contrast.  A water garden – actually, a four-container water garden – was completed just  this morning.

At a driveway turnaround, five
containers mix annuals
with shrubs (the acuba and
hydrangea).

These portable gardens provide bridges to our ‘permanent’ gardens, softening buffers for sidewalks and driveways, and focal points to pull the eye to corners of the garden that might otherwise escape attention.

They require maintenance: flowers need to be deadheaded just as in any garden; ‘thugs’ need to be trimmed back less they take over.  And, on hot summer days, each container can take a gallon or more of water to keep roots cool and damp. 

This container, likely in its last
year of use, mixes caladiums
with a prolifically flowering
vine.

And, finally, some containers are
there just to draw the eye to
corners of the property.