HELLO, SUNSHINE–AND NOT JUST IN THE SKY. Cornus mas is an increasingly vibrant cloud of gold up on my hillside the last week. This easy shrub is also known as the Cornelian cherry, though it’s actually a dogwood—oh, don’t get me started on the uselessness of common names. Instead of forsythia, I grow Cornus mas (more on it here) and some other yellow earlybirds instead, the rest of which should be reporting for duty in a week or so. Meantime, I’m basking in this beauty.
shade gardening
The older my garden gets, the more shady beds and borders I have. Great plants and sensible strategies for growing in shade.
in bloom now: oh-so-sunny cornus mas
March 28, 2010 at 3:59 pm
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bigger the better: aralia cordata and its cousins
August 16, 2009 at 9:31 am
IF YOU LIKE YOUR PERENNIALS SIZE XL, the genus Aralia is hard to overlook. And like shift workers, its members are just going to the job when everyone else wants to pack it in and crawl back into bed. Yes, the rest of the garden is really starting to crumple and yawn and otherwise express its exhaustion, but here come the aralias (including Aralia cordata, above). [read more…]
what did you say your favorite hosta was?
July 19, 2009 at 3:03 pm
WE TALKED HOSTAS MONTHS AGO, in the dead of winter, when they were just twinkles in a gardener’s eye, or images pulled from color catalogs and memory. Now they’re not just up and all filled out, but blooming, too, which got me wondering again: If it were only one hosta per customer, what would yours be? I think I’m sticking with ‘June’ (above), like I said last time, and if I could have a second it would still be ‘Sagae,’ and then I need one small- or medium-sized gold one, and…sorry, I said just one, didn’t I? But seriously: Can you pick just one? Looking around, even in such a slug-filled year, I realize more than ever how I rely on the genus Hosta.
2 ferns with more lasting color than any flower
June 15, 2009 at 5:35 pm
A NY FLOWER WOULD BE HARD-PRESSED TO COMPETE with the two most colorful ferns in the garden here, which have been showing off since the first crozier poked through the soil surface in early May and won’t stop till very late fall. No wonder I grow so many Japanese painted ferns and autumn ferns; they make shade gardening look easy, adding heavy doses of purple and silver or coral and gold, respectively, and never asking for so much as a deadheading in return. [read more…]
a plant i’d order: primula japonica
May 26, 2009 at 7:52 am
I’M ALWAYS SURPRISED BY HOW MANY CANDELABRA PRIMROSES there are by bloom time, because you never really know until just beforehand, when Primula japonica’s lettuce-like leaves seem to suddenly spread and stretch up and out from nowhere. Whoosh! This year, in the considerable shade of some old winterberry hollies and viburnums, I seem to have a positive infestation. Things could most definitely be worse than to be surrounded by these charming creatures. [read more…]
the toughest groundcovers i rely on
May 20, 2009 at 10:13 am
W HEN I AM GONE, SOME OF THE PLANTS HERE WILL PERISH, TOO; any finicky or timid ones will get swamped by their more ambitious neighbors. But not the great groundcovers, not Geranium macrorrhizum (above) or the toughest epimediums and others content to keep growing whether I pay them any mind or not, even in the hardest spots like the dry shade of trees. To knit things together without a lot of fuss, I’ve come to rely on plants like these: [read more…]
great shrubs: kerria japonica ‘picta’
May 11, 2009 at 9:46 am
T HERE IS A BIG CLOUD OF THE LOUDEST, EGG-YOLK GOLD in a shady part of my garden now, the kind of botanical scream that says spring is really here. The variegated Kerria is reminding me that despite its delicate green stems and tiny foliage, that it’s somebody, too: somebody worth having around. Even after more than 15 years together, I haven’t tired of this basically carefree creature. My first in a new series on great landscape shrubs: Kerria japonica ‘Picta.’ [read more…]
beloved conifer: microbiota decussata
May 6, 2009 at 7:31 am
F ILL IN THE BLANK: ___________ is an evergreen ground-covering conifer that can tolerate some shade and minus-30 or colder. I guess I gave away the answer in the headline, but you get the idea: It’s an unusual set of traits. And Microbiota decussata, the so-called Siberian cypress, distinguishes itself just a little further, turning a bronzy-purplish cast in winter. [read more…]
a plant i’d order: trachystemon orientalis
May 3, 2009 at 8:03 pm
IT WAS KEN DRUSE, the garden writer and photographer, who gave me Trachystemon orientalis years ago, after many unsubtle hints on my part. Like any plant you don’t know and haven’t seen, it seemed a treasure: something precious, a jewel, oh could I please have just the tiniest bit, Ken? Today I garden in a small sea of this borage relative (think comfrey, another cousin, if you want to know the inclinations of Trachystemon, which is also a cousin of Pulmonaria). I have to smile when I recall how we relative few who had it “back then” kept such a tight fist on our prize possession. [read more…]
