Cicada on Brunnera

Caught this cicada lolling on a brunnera leaf this morning. I'm certainly no cicada expert, but May 25 seems very early for cicadas.

Garden Diary: Rain, sun, the rising tide

After a week of cold and rain, the weather is shifting and we have a sunny windy day. The light comes in two ways - reflected, glinting off the flat surfaces of leaves, and filtered through the forest trees. This morning it's easy to see how medieval artisans "got" stained glass windows. (I tried to take a picture but my camera isn't up to recording qualities of morning light, thus these substitute photos.)


The last sparkles of the Brunnera are being over taken by feverfew above. The plants are swelling like a rising tide, much too fast, and many will flop if not restrained, cut back, or slowed by a dry spell. Time to get out the shears and prune the feverfew, cat mint and other smaller (should be) plants that will have time to thicken up and bloom later, in June.


The new Darmera peltata by the pond are liking the wet. I hope to transform this muddy edge with an herbal necklace before midsummer. By next year, I hope the pond will be a like a brown oculus reflecting the surrounding plants (think different heights and structures) and the sky. Well... perhaps oculus isn't the right word for my brown pond. We'll see.

Garden Diary: Speaking of Groundcovers

The experiment continues in the main garden - the wet prairie behind the house. Now that our cedar forest has become an open clearing, the light and air is changing the habitat that existed before. Though it makes for a rather messy look in spring and early summer, I'm leaving the established plant colonies such as bracken, sensitive fern, cinquefoil, violets, and equisetum to do their thing. In the newly opened spaces, ruderals (pioneer plants) have seeded in, and I'm leaving them too. I expect many of them to be here for several years until the more competitive species take over. With the passing years, and some judicious weeding to control such undesirable behavior as seeding into the crowns of established plants, I hope the natural process of plant succession and competition will result in the groundcover layer simplifying itself over time.

Here are some pictures of what's happening right now. First, a blanket of equisetum punctuated by a native Scirpus.


Though the equisetum is highly invasive, I like its soft, fuzzy effect seen from a distance, and its primitive character close up. I may as well; I couldn't get rid of it without some highly destructive intervention. And the Scirpus grows so large, and so profusely, it also behaves as a groundcover though on a much larger scale.

In wetter areas, sensitive fern, another "legacy" plant, slowly spreads. I guess it would be classified as a stress tolerator. It lives in very wet places where most other plants would languish. You can even see some pooled water here from a recent rain. Not an example of well drained soil!


Bracken and cinquefoil have covered this corner with two levels.


I know bracken has a reputation for being a real thug, but in my garden environment it is rather well behaved. And it's such an attractive structural plant I'd be happy to have more. In front of it is a carpet of cinquefoil in bloom. Not a beautiful plant, unless closely examined, but useful for covering large areas quickly.

Plants I want to suppress are multiflora rose and poison ivy (Toxicodendron radicans). They have no desirable qualities, in my view, and seem able to compete with just about anything in the plant kingdom, so I'm driven to digging and using Roundup in my struggle with these invaders.

Most of the large prairie-type plants I've inserted into the groundcover matrix - Eupatorium purpureum, Filipendula rubra 'Venusta', Liatris pycnostachya, Rudbeckia maxima, various Silphiums, and large grasses - have no trouble penetrating this dense cover. By midsummer, they'll begin to dominate the landscape and the less attractive lower level will disappear into the background.

Garden Diary: Two Exotic Groundcovers

Sweet woodruff (Galium odoratum) and myrtle (Vinca minor) make a striking carpet at this time of the year. The myrtle has been in bloom for about a month. Only in the past week have the colonies of Sweet woodruff popped into bloom. Both are considered invasive exotics, but at Federal Twist they coexist happily, seemingly without affecting the native carexes, the numerous seedling trees, or the highly invasive, but native, poison ivy.

I know the myrtle was introduced over 40 years ago because William Hunt's architectural plans called for extensive plantings to control erosion on the steep banks surrounding the house, which was built in 1965. I welcome its periwinkle blue flowers every spring, especially in the wilder woods in front of the house. I have no idea when the Sweet woodruff was introduced; it has formed several distinct colonies that, I admit, seem to grow a little larger each year.

The thick mats of mixed myrtle and Sweet woodruff remind me of William Martin's "layering" planting technique, as he described it in his Vista lecture recently in London (see post below). At his well known garden, Wigandia, in Australia, he gardens on the side of a volcano, in soil and environmental conditions vastly different from mine. His technique does not involve horizontal, visual layering of plants as in a border, but rather vertical layering. He covers the ground thickly with a low, even "thuggish" (to use his word) kind of planting, then grows the larger, more structural plants through the layer covering the ground. I was happy to hear his description because I'm trying to use a similar technique in my garden on Federal Twist Road.

The mat of Sweet woodruff and myrtle is one preexisting example of this "layering" technique given to me by Edith Howeth, the first and previous gardener at Federal Twist. I'm experimenting with other combinations in the main garden at back, where conditions are different - more open, very wet, and sunny.

If only ...

If only this ephemeral stream were about 400 feet east of its present location, I'd have it in my garden. Am I a hopeless romantic?

Well not in every way... I got Tim Richardson's new Avant Gardeners ("50 Visionaries of the Contemporary Landscape") last week. With its emphasis on conceptual gardens, it's a strong antidote to lingering romanticism. Richardson's writing is, as usual, stimulating, full of ideas, and a delight. I won't try to evaluate the book because I haven't finished it. Unfortunate that it's not a larger format though; it's rather hard to see the point with such tight page layouts. And I definitely find the graphic design to be lacking, really dated (think psychedelic 60s). It doesn't do the content justice. Nevertheless, I recommend you buy the book. The essays alone are worth the price.

Hawk in Dogwood and Alien Exotics

Sitting in the study overlooking the garden is like being in a tree house. This morning a hawk perched in one of the dogwoods outside the house. He didn't know he was sitting just above alien alliums about to burst into bloom, nor did he care, if hawks care.

Garden Diary: Battling Japanese Stilt Grass

Every summer an invasive grass fills my garden like a gently rising flood. Until mid-summer it's hardly noticeable, then suddenly it springs up to two or three feet, thick masses that lean over and flatten in rain, literally swamping smaller plants. The annual guerrilla action of Japanese Stilt Grass (Microstegium vimineum) sends me into periods of depression and despair alternating with hope for its eventual eradication.

Most agricultural research in the U.S. offers limited measures for control of large areas of infestation. There are three methods for control: use of herbicides, hand pulling late in the season (late to limit time for regeneration from the seed bank), and mowing late in the season (early mowing seems to promote rapid regrowth and seed formation).

Fortunately this is an annual grass, so it should be controllable with a preemergent or some other herbicide applied later in the season. Since I rely on seeded plantings to be an important part of my garden, particularly for weed suppressing groundcover, I'm reluctant to use a preemergent. For the same reason, I'm reluctant to use herbicide later in the season.

Last summer I tried mowing in early fall, but not early enough I'm afraid, because seed formation already had begun. This summer, I'll try hand pulling, which is quite easy in wet ground but a real chore over an acre, followed by mowing. Yes, I'll also mow the first year seeded plants, but most of those will probably not be harmed and will return the following year with more vigor.

If anyone who reads this has had any success eradicating Japanese Stilt Grass, I'd appreciate hearing how you did it.

And that photo at the top? It's not my garden.

Gardening with a Legacy: A Talk at the Museum of Garden History

In North America, we certainly have no Sissinghurst or Stowe, and relatively few gardens notable enough to give great concern about how they will survive after the passing of their owners. Nevertheless, consideration of the challenges presented by such gardens can reveal much about what is of value, and worth preserving, in a garden, even a new one, and what isn't.

Gardens Illustrated has made available a new podcast of a talk by Sir Roy Strong, former director of the Victoria and Albert Museum, and Fergus Garrett of Great Dixter. Here is GI's summary: "Sir Roy Strong, who created his garden The Laskett together with his late wife, and Fergus Garrett, head gardener at Great Dixter in Sussex (home to the late Christopher Lloyd) talk about their experiences of gardening with a legacy. They consider whether a garden can be expected to live beyond the life of its owner, and how to move a garden forward while respecting its heritage."

To download the podcast, go directly to the GI website. This podcast is near the bottom of the page.

William Faulkner's Garden

I like the melancholy atmosphere of derelict gardens, even waste places like abandoned rail lines, old roadways, forgotten graveyards. Next to our house on Federal Twist Road clumps of daffodils, a huge deutzia, and tangles of white wisteria make it clear this was the site of someone's house many years ago. I haven't yet found physical evidence of the house, but an old well pump, probably in the front of the house, and a pond, likely at the back, suggest where it could have been. The whole area is so overgrown with multiflora rose it's difficult to explore. Nevertheless, it's a pleasant place to spend a few moments of contemplation.

Two springs ago, on a visit to see my ailing mother and my sister in Oxford, Mississippi, I stopped by to visit William Faulkner's house, Rowanoak. The house has been restored to the genteel shabbiness appropriate to the time of his residence there. The gardens around it haven't, which I'm grateful for. But they show someone's attention to a sort of formal design long ago, with old brick paths and brick lined beds, a double row of cedars along the path to the entrance, and rather gappy formal hedges of privet. Several outbuildings, most probably dating from the 19th century, add architectural interest.

The garden probably was never brought to a state of more than middling finish, but it has a peacefulness and charm, and offers a sense of privacy and security, hard to find in our 21st century world. Let's call it a strolling garden, a contemplative garden.

It's possible to make a circuit around the house, where you see remnants of old shrub plantings - hollies, hydrangea, hostas, but with no discernible plan, a simple maze-like arrangement of waist-high privet hedges in the back, a wisteria growing on a post, dogwoods (Cornus florida), red buds (Cercis canadensis), camellias.




Off one side of the house you can walk through open clearings surrounded by woods, where Faulkner kept his horses. These small fields are mowed and make a pleasant stroll to the edge of the woods where a massive grape vine (probably muscadine) writhes like a serpent in the Laocoon.

In more open space nearer the house, the cedars have been trimmed high, leaving irregular clouds of green at the tops of narrow soaring columns, dark against the blue spring sky.

Spicebush (Lindera benzoin)

Early to mid April the woods all along Federal Twist Road are sparkling with hundreds of Lindera benzoin in bloom. These native shrubs have an attractive open structure, spicy fragrance on a warm day (thus the moniker 'Spice bush'), and a multitude of very small flowers that make a dramatic impression where they grow in sufficient numbers. Warm yellow foliage in fall, too. Fortunately, deer avoid them.

This is a great substitute for the overused and, in my opinion, garish forsythia.