On this rainy day, we start in the woodland garden looking down toward the main prairie garden ...
Ground covers are essential to controlling weeds. Here Ajuga 'Caitlan's Giant' and Sweet Woodruff (Galium orodatum).
Planting the utility area, where piles of chipped trees were stored for years, with Carex pennsylvanica, Pulmonarias, ferns, Helleborus foetidus ... who knows what else? Have to see what works here.
Out into the rain soaked prairie ... looking down the long pond.
Ligularia japonica ... it's becoming a magnificent specimen ... three others haven't attained this size, but they get less water ...
Massed plantings of Filipendula rubra 'Venusta' and Iris virginica against a background of horsetail (Equisetum arvense), which become significant structural elements as they grow larger ...
These giant coneflowers (Rudbeckia maxima) have become a signature plant in the garden. They're everywhere, even starting to self-seed. I read they like dry conditions, but they have thrived for years in my wet clay. Off to the left, one of two spreading colonies of Lysimachia ciliata 'Firecracker'. The color makes them a dominant presence in the garden.
Shaggy boxwoods and bergenia ...
One of three Gleditsia triacanthos 'Sunburst' for early color.
Sensitive fern (Onoclea sensibilis), a native ...
Marc Rosenquist's bronze, which is becoming an organizing feature of the garden (more on that in another post). Its dominating presence draws the eye, and its shape strongly echos many plants (particularly the more formal shapes of Thuja and box).
More Rudbeckia maxima (there are many such surprises) ...
Another source of early gold, Euphorbia palustris, with Miscanthus ...
And bracken ... it was here before I was, and it will stay. Beautiful form and autumn color.
The mid-garden sitting area, added last year. That wretched Magnolia 'Little Gem' is coming out, to be replaced by ... what? Grasses? Cercis canadensis 'Hearts of Gold'?
A self-seeded Silphium perfoliatum, which came up last year, has grown like topsy, as they say.
Many of these self-seeded Silphium laciniatum have appeared this year. Can they take the competitive pressure and grow? I don't know so must wait and see.
Another self-seeder, Eupatorium perfoliatum, a native that just appeared three years ago.
A planted Sanguisorba, amid native Jewelweed (Impatiens capensis).
Views from a bedroom window.
James, your garden changes enormously through the year. Just a little while ago, there was so much bareness. I notice how the surrounding woods/wildness not only form a backdrop, but seem to get into your garden, like a current emerging, unbounded. How delightful to find unplanned natives springing up. Bracken is one of my favourite plants, being such an 'un-garden' plant. You no doubt have masses of new ideas forming...
ReplyDeleteSo very, very glad you posted these May photos. What incredible growing conditions you have for such a range of great plants. That matched with your artistry has made a very special place, unlike anything this SoCal gal is used to. And is that the Wave Hill chair I spy?
ReplyDeleteFaisal, yes, it's taken on a life of its own. I just have to learn to keep cool, keep my nerve, and not let it get too out of control. Something is different now that the garden is maturing. There's more self-seeding, for example, and the mat of plant material covering the earth is much denser than before. All good, I think.
ReplyDeleteDenise, I often joke that my growing conditions are "impossible." I wouldn't wish them on my worst enemy. But the garden does demonstrate that, with selection of plants according to their origins and likes, one can make a garden just about anywhere. Yes, those are Wave Hill chairs. Need one or two more.
ReplyDeleteBeautifully done. I could walk in your woodland garden all day. How long has this garden been in the making?
ReplyDeleteIt's young. I only started it in early 2005, but most of the first year was devoted to clearing trees to make open space. So five-and-a-half years.
ReplyDeleteDoes the Bracken try to invade?
ReplyDeleteMarc Rosenquist's bronze certainly echoes the Thuja in the photograph. Beautiful green in May, I know there are other colours to come and height, lots of height.
In your opinion can rudbeckia maxima take it droughty?
Rob, the Bracken is invasive, but I have room for it. And the plants around it are highly competitive, so that tends to keep it within bounds. It's easy enough to pull up what I don't want if it strays. Accordins to the USDA web site, Rudbeckia maxima's water use is "high" and it's tolerence for dry conditions is "low." It's "anaerobic tolerence" is also listed as "high." This confirms my own experience. I find it seeding in even extremely wet places. On the other hand, I've heard plants people from the Southeast (it comes from the Arkansas/Texas border area) say it grows in dry, hot, sunny conditions. I guess only a test will tell the tale.
ReplyDeleteJames I forgot to mention, I've looked at Wigandia but there doesn't seem to be any content when I click photos. I viewed various magazine articles through the links but they were older quality pdf images. I just wondered if there was anywhere else to see, It is, as you put it, an extraordinary garden.
ReplyDeletecheers
Ahhhh " it's taken on a life of its own"
ReplyDeleteand double Ahhh "Does the Bracken try to invade?"
A life of its own indeed... Pseudo Ecological is my borrowed term for it. (Hugh Johnson 'Tradescant' ) It is no mean feat to arrive at a point in a managed plot of ground when the plant content finds its own 'feet' and can by and large manage itself. To achieve this type of balance requires an understanding of ones regional and climatic conditions and the ability to know when to interfere and of course the more important when NOT to interfere. I call it 'the art of not-gardening'! Horticultural tragics need not apply.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bracken This may well be my favourite plant and consider myself very fortunate it is happy to grace my garden. Historically (in particular the colonised 'New World') this plant was considered the baddie of agriculture (after tree's) and was dealt with accordingly.... the plague of the agricultural world!
Ironically this plant was once grown in 'agricultural' quantities (at least in the UK) for its roots for the production (burnt/ash) of high quality potash to spread on (gasp) farm land.
It is also a member of the highest 'order' of ALL plant life 'Cosmopolitan' (in my book)
Great stuff James and a damn fine achievement. One garden like yours is worth 10,000 dandy design school excuses for garden. I am happy to announce you are the first spatial carer to receive a place on the 'The Wigandia cosmopolitan tip-the-lidus of Bracken' (first class with moss 'leaves')
This I do not give out lightly.
Best Bracken
William Bracken
Bracken
ames I forgot to mention, I've looked at Wigandia but there doesn't seem to be any content when I click photos. I viewed various magazine articles through the links but they were older quality pdf images. I just wondered if there was anywhere else to see, It is, as you put it, an extraordinary garden.
ReplyDeleteThanks Mr Rob..I have thousands of photo's on my smugmug site but have disabled the link to it as i am discontinuing this service in a cost cutting excercise (ones garden under neon lights hardly pays the bills) but you can see some of my photographs here http://williammartinwigandia.posterous.com/
Repeat after me 'there is a plant equation for EVERY type of soil conditions'..you may not warm to that equation initially but so be it. If all the resources used in trying to alter given soil/climate types (no need to prattle on about them) were channeled into (or not) a more sensible tack the world would be all the better for it. Gardeners are possibly some of the most misguided and misinformed (un-washed and un-read) of all land managers. So there!
ReplyDeleteBracken
James,
ReplyDeleteThe paths and wall look great as do all the textures. I was at a very interesting Gardens Illustrated lecture while I was in England called Current trends in planting and design. The big new development was using natural plant communities as a template for planting design. I think that is exactly what you are doing. I couldn't think of a more successful example. Sorry you didn't se this lecture, you would have really liked it.
I am going to try Rudbeckia maxima is a dry public garden I am working on in your honor and see what happens.
Oh i forgot..Mr Rob i wouldn't bother to look at my photo's as Gardens Illustrated are not interested in using them for a feature on the place (or so the prominent English writer G.I. commisioned to write the piece informs me) I suppose I will have to rest on my G.I.laurels (Nov 1999) with Andrew Lawson's splendid but wrong season (early Spring) photo's.(My garden sings in high summer after some decent heat)
ReplyDeleteSorry to hijack you site James!
Best
Bracken
Rob, I'm sorry for misdirecting you. I didn't realize William Martin had removed the photo link. But he gave you the answer. I've checked it and you can find lots of photos of Wigandia and its landscape (it's on the side of an old volcano) at:
ReplyDeletehttp://williammartinwigandia.posterous.com/
William Bracken,
ReplyDeleteThank you for giving me 'The Wigandia cosmopolitan tip-the-lidus of Bracken' (first class with moss 'leaves') award. I will display it on my imaginary mantle with pride.
When I first moved in, I listened to the gardening books and tried to kill my Bracken with herbicide. Fortunately, I left most of it, and even the spot I tried to kill survived (I guess it's been around for 55 million years because it's not easy to kill).
Bad advice I read.
So I have many plants most gardening books would shudder at. But, as you say, knowing your conditions is what makes the difference. "The art of not gardening."
Michael,
ReplyDeleteI do wish I could have attended that lecture. Who were the presenters?
Good luck with the Rudbeckia maxima. Although I read it takes, even wants, dry conditions, in my experience it likes wet.
James
Wonderful post, as always, I'm so captivated by your garden, both in the wide scope and in the smaller details. That bronze is so perfect for your site, so evocative of the natural and man-made elements (cloche, seedpod, who knows!). That Ligularia is stunning...love that dissected foliage. The Rudbecia maxima are such great exclamation points in your garden...very lovely. I almost bought a few of those Lysimachia this spring, but put them back for some reason...now, seeing yours, I'm wishing I'd bought them...oh well! Also, nothing thrills me more than the self-seeders...that sort of spontaneity is what makes gardens seem like a participant in their own creation.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Scott. If you get that Lysimachia 'Firecracker', you don't need much. It spreads like crazy. And be forewarned that it tends to collapse in the rain after flowering. But so much depends on your own local conditions ... don't go on my experience as a guide. I too like the self-seeding. Some element of randomness makes a garden, I think. You can always edit out what doesn't work.
ReplyDeleteI hope your prairie is still rain-soaked. We are dry here and brutally hot. A little ICU rain fell on Sunday but it was not long term fix. Your garden is looking great.
ReplyDeleteJames,
ReplyDeleteThe speakers were Andy Sturgeon, Cleve West and Dan Pearson and the moderators were Noel Kingsbury and Tim Richardson. I hope to do a post on it sometime this summer.
Scott mentions the value of self seeders..for most gardens if decent initial preparatory work is neglected the self seeders might well be rampant weeds (the plants you would rather not have) and the many spend the rest of their life (well) battling them. My method of management was to deal with the undesirables (my land was for 160 years an agricultural paddock) before I created planting area's. I introduced more desirable self seeders to offset and loosen my contrived plantings. Many garden visitors don't understand why such plants should be allowed and that i am afraid is a reflection on the historical control/management of gardens. Most it seems want their gardens to be rather static and without any form of randomness..control control!
ReplyDeleteMy motto would be 'choose your own weeds'
the way to go!
Best Bracken
Bracken
Les, we've had quite a wet spring and only a couple of really hot spells. Wish we could send some (rain) your way.
ReplyDeleteMichael, that is a meeting I would very much have liked to attend. I hope you do post on it. Sounds exciting.
ReplyDeleteBest Bracken,
ReplyDeleteI do wish I had done more thorough preparation. Fortunately, the garden to be was rather species poor woodland so there were fewer "weeds" than would have been the case in an open field. The only undesirables I must cope with so far are pasture grasses, probably from farming in the 18th or 19th centuries, and poison ivy (Toxicodendron radicans), which the birds give me a fresh crop of every year. Some of the more desirable weeds are Sisyrinchium augustifolium and Ludwigia alternifolia (seedbox, a plant I find delightful in all seasons, with amazing brown cube seed boxes). Even the wild grasses have the benefit of a meadow look, and covering the ground, helping to prevent more pernicious weeds.
How many locally indigenous plants have popped up? In my part of the new world European agricultural pasture has destroyed almost any vestige of native vegetation..if we till the ground all we get are old world weeds and almost never anything that was once native. BUT we own a four acre former scoria pit where because the area has no topsoil (or farm animals)the native wallaby grass has recolonised along with many Echiums which are quite at home growing on recent volcanic material! It just occurred to me that acreage is not dissimilar to what you trendy gardeners call 'Prairie' ...whoaa I am hip hip hip Kingsbury!!
ReplyDeleteWallaby Martin
AU
Am I now a 'New Australian' gardener?
You're a hard man, Bill Martin. How many? Let me count the ways, as they say. (Not exactly an appropriate line, but I couldn't resist.) There are so many native carex, I can't even think of counting them or knowing what they all are (I took a carex course, but when I learned I'd have to compare flower parts under a microscope to identify one among thousands, I gave up). I encourage the carex as an attractive, interesting, and highly variable ground cover (lots of geometric interest in their flowers and seeds) and higher quality foliage than the "alien" European grasses, Juncus, rushes (especially Scirpus cyperinus), Onoclea sensibilis. Masses of Equisetum arvense, which I assume is native here, but I suppose it could have been introduced (who would do that?) many decades back, Matteucia struthiopteris, Polysteichum acrosticoides, Pycnantheum virginia, various asters, probably others I can't remember since I haven't had enough coffee yet. Then there are the European plants that have been here so long I think of them as native--Hemerocallus fulva (I love it even though it's hated by the native plant people), Verbascum thapsus. I can't go on but you get the idea. Why do you give Kingsbury such a hard time? He's a great writer, and I've learned a tremendous about from him. He certainly recognizes what the Europeans call prairie is not really prairie. I think what I have here is closer to the real prairies (mostly small and isolated prairie pockets on the eastern seaboard), but who cares? It's "pseudo-ecological" to use your Hugh Johnson borrowed term.
ReplyDeleteForgot to mention,speaking of natives, a big black bear (Ursus americanus) came to my front door at twilight yesterday, walked straight up the walk to the door and waited as if wanting to be let in, then stared at me through the glass doors. I'm thankful I had all the doors (glass doors) closed because he could easily have come in through the screen doors. Probably over 400 pounds. Scared the s___ our of me. But a native, for sure.
ReplyDeleteMarc Rosenquist's bronze with 'ribs' removed to allow light play through would be rather effective? (another version)
ReplyDeleteBracken.
Sir, my english is verry simple, sorry. I like your garden, your web federaltwist.blogspot.com, your photos etc. Unfortunately I lack words... :-( I have a garden, woodland garden. My grandfather built the garden 1932/33/34...Here is my blog: http://dedeckovazahrada.blogspot.com/(it is grandfather"s garden). Good luck, Petra from Czech from Central Europe
ReplyDeleteI don't know about you James but i think the above garden of Petra's is quite wonderful..perhaps its the lack of influence of the fashionable Euro designers that makes it all the more appealing. Whilst we are on the subject of influence..most gardens are way to copy cat i can have that look too sort of thing and generally I find that rather boring (same in the popular music world or any other field for that matter) Give me bad originality over good copyism any-day of the week or lifetime!
ReplyDeleteI spent over 3 hours talking to a horticultural student yesterday (she was doing some research)about all this stuff and in particular the lack of originality and the prevalence of glossy mag/book influence 'looks'...I as you know have not been a particular fan of Garden Illustrated magazine for various reasons but it struck me yesterday that this magazine with its predominant promotion of the English 'look' and to a lesser extent the 'euro' has influenced and changed many gardens here. many of the older gardens that have received this home county 'refinement' in my humble opinion have had much 'australianess' obliterated in the pursuit of these rather gentrified models. This I abhore..I am all for decent garden publications but PLEASE do we have to look to other cultures for THEIR equation when we have (though not very distinctive) concepts of out own? Give me homegrown everytime!
B. Racken
Best
B. Racken
Petka, thank you for commenting. I like your grandfather's garden very much, the stone walls and terracing on the hillside, and the simple plantings. I also like the idea of your grandfather's garden. It's almost 80 years old! I think it's wonderful that you are blogging about it. I only wish I could read Czech. I fortunate to be able to visit Prague several years ago. It is an extraordinarily beautiful city.
ReplyDeleteWilliam, I have to admit my original inspiration for my own garden was Piet Oudolf, but now it's become something else entirely. I'm not Piet Oufold; I'm James Golden, and my garden, I hope, is a, let's say, a Delaware River Valley garden. With the high cost of publishing, and fewer readers, I also think we are not likely to have any alternatives to GI in our futures. Probably self-published blogs is as close as we will get to garden publications that reflect local cultures. I'm terribly annoyed when I hear that someone wants an "English Garden" and wish we had other terms to describe what we want in our gardens. So I agree with you that the "English garden establishment" has influenced us greatly, to such an extent that we often don't even recognize it. That's one reason I'm so in favor of the "prairie garden." At least, it's origin is in North America, the idea came from here, and it gives us something we can claim, even though it's interpreted in many different ways, in Europe as well as here.
ReplyDeletewell said James..Oudolf or no Oudolf in your formative years you have created a landscape infinitely more satisfying in its breadth and execution of idea's and dare i say it restraint of idea's. (the more important) Oudolf's excellence in HIS interpretation (no he is not the originator of any style) of the Pseudo Ecological genre is without any doubt for EUROPE unparalleled. Your garden and indeed your photography exudes way more refreshing idea's than anything I know in ANY country. From my own perspective i have throughout my garden involvement steered clear of designer books and the attendant fashionable bits and bobs and have looked to my own backyard (my climatic region) for quirky timestamps in idea's of the different fashionable architectural periods and have thrown them into my cement mixer mind to produce the garden currently known as Wigandia ! Subsequently those who just love to box and categorize everything and anything are confused as to what i have created and my work is generally fobbed off as eccentric 'arty' or similar. It is said by some commentators that my creation is like no other known! I would not go quite that far BUT the essence of this diatribe IS we are ALL capable of creating half decent gardens WITHOUT the prop of the latest Hobhouse/G.I or whatever ..
ReplyDeleteB. Racken
P.S. My greatest influence in MY garden making without a doubt has been broken down man made landscapes (old abandoned gardens) and to a lesser extent observation of remnant wild places (sort of natural) I place decay in a landscape above all else in inspirational value. (oh i hate that word)
ReplyDeleteB. racken
Furthermore (I have many of those) on the 'influence' flip of the coin I think half the known world of garden makers (read western) need to wean themselves off their belief that the U.K. garden scene and its many (too many perhaps) writers of just about everything and anything that is LOCAL for them. The Brit garden scene often likes to think of itself as the superior being in all things garden and whilst it has achieved great things in the past in more recent years seems to have attempted and failed (not always) to re-invent itself one last time!
ReplyDeleteIt is also true (as you say) that the magazine G.I. magazine holds a certain allure BUT perhaps its somewhat institutional approach has passed its use by date...THE tragically short lived 'New Eden' magazine (out of the countrylife mag stable) published a few years back for a handful of issues with Tim Richardson on the rudder was for me the (and quite a few others) for the British scene a wonderful escape from H.M.P. G.I. and its lesser ilk ....and the clogged arteries of so much horticultural baggage from other times. (and values)
Maybe such magazines should take a break for a year or 2 and so too the major 'iconic' overly 'influential' gardens like Great Dixter/Sissinghurst etc. Too much of a good thing is no good for anyone or thing!
Let British horticulture stay at home for awhile. Or should it get 'out' more?
The word Cliché just sprang to mind.
Best
B. Racken.
I read somewhere someone commented that Oudolf is a rare 'success' in his field (for his generation)
ReplyDeleteand the answer was yes because he was never a Hippie...I have wondered why financial 'success' has eluded me! The best of luck to him he deserves every dollar and should be nominated for a Nobel prize.
B. Racken
as Oscar Wilde reputed said about the drab wallpaper in his Paris hotel. 'one of us has to go'!
ReplyDeletewm
James its not only about the blog..that really does not fuss me but its the whole garden $ game..I must be a dreamer i thought gardens were about love peace and understanding TOO.
ReplyDeletewm
Sir, you are right, Prague is very beautiful city. I live in Prague, unfortunately, my garden is 140 km away... My grandfather died in 1982, my grandmother did not allow in the garden maintenance (my grandmother died in 2008, at age 95 - full power and authority :-) ). My parents, my 4 children, my husband and I, we all want to return to the beauty of the garden. We found an old box of a plan or map of 1932, the original plan the garden. Reconstruction of the garden is under this old plan - in principle. Terraces of my grandfather were in clay, my terraces of dry stone, because the climate is different in the garden. My grandfather's trees are now large, adult, and the garden is today a lot of sun and drought. Terraces of stone are suitable for lavender, sage, thyme - they love the sun and dry. I work as a teacher in high school, I have enough free time and I can work on their terraces - slowly :-)I had three days in Prague and four days in the garden, you must also worry about Mom and Dad, parents are no longer young and healthy. I read a lot about the natural garden, on the principle of Permaculture and looking for inspiration and informations on the Internet. This letter (scary monster) is absolutely the longest English text that I wrote. Czech language and English language are not really sisters :-)
ReplyDeleteI wish you a nice day, Petra
Petra,thank you for making the effort to communicate in a language you don't know well. I have Czech friends, and I have heard them talk about Czech grammar, which I know is very different from English. There also seem to be very few similar words. When I was in Prague, I was mystified by Czech. I couldn't even understand how to pronounce words. It is very exciting to hear you have found your grandfather's original plan for the garden. Your plan of making terraces of stone sounds exciting. I don't have dry conditions, so I envy your being able to grow lavender and other Mediterranean-type plants. Have you read Karel Capek's book on gardening? It has become a classic even in the West.
ReplyDeleteSir, You know the Karel Capek's book Zahradníkův rok? This is amazing! I am a teacher of Czech language (yes, the Czech grammar is as heavy as a Greek grammar - the Czech verb is heaviest in the Indo-European languages) and Karel Capek is my favorite Czech author! This is the summer House of Karel Capek: http://foto.mapy.cz/113599-Dum-bratri-Capku. This is the Prague House Capek brothers (Josef Capek was a painter and died in April 1945 in concentration camp Bergen-Belsen): http://www.slavnevily.cz/vily/praha/dvojdum-bratri-capku. Besides the two houses are beautiful gardens created by Karel Capek and his father MUDR: Antonin Capek. Capek's Garden in Prague is currently as follows: http://www.novinky.cz/cestovani/162536-obrazem-slavne-prazske-vily-vinohrady-a-vrsovice.html. Descendants of painter Josef Capek is now caring for the garden, Karel Capek had in their half of the garden alpinum and Josef Capek was a natural garden. Entrance to the garden is not released to the public - shame.
ReplyDeleteI wish you a nice Sunday! Petra
Petra, thank you for giving me these links. I started exploring them and realized Karel Capek was much more than a writer of a famous garden book. I just ordered his novel trilogy (starting with Hordubal) in English translation.
ReplyDeleteSir, you heve made a good choice :-) Capek's trilogy is the best, it is the culmination of his work. Karel Capek has a specific language. Capek can oscillate between the correct high and low language. Capek's dialogues are always very lively thanks to the different planes of language. And Capek is always empathetic to his characters (heroes).
ReplyDeleteCapek's Boží muka a Trapné povídky are philosophical stories, Povídky z jedné a druhé kapsy (= Stories of 1 pocket, of 2 pocket) are stories of mystery. His drama Matka (= The Mother) outraged by the Nazis, Nazis went in to the house for Capek in 1939, Capek but was already dead. The Munich Pact (pact of appeasement) had killed this writer, because Capek lived for democracy, especially President Masaryk's democracy (see The dialogues with TGM = Tomas Garrigue Masaryk, 1. czechoslovak President). Capek was a doctor of philosophy, wrote a philosophical text about the pragmatism. Capek was not a poet, but translated French poetry (Francouzská poezie nové doby = French poetry of new era), this anthology is a really phenomenal :-)) A book about a little dog Dášeňka čili život štěněte (= Dášeňka or puppy´s life) is book for children and adults, this is a famous book. I recommend you travel Capek´s Letters from Italy, Letters from England, Letters from Spain, Letters from Holland or Travels in the North. Know that the international word robot is a Capek brothers´s word? It is a Josef Capek's neologism for Karel Capek's drama :-) The word ROBOTA, this is dialectism for HARD WORK... It's terrible that I write about the brothers Capek such primitive sentences...
Regards from Prague, Petra
Dear Petra,
ReplyDeleteThank you for the information on Karel Capek. It helps me better understand what I have read about him on the internet, especially on Wikipedia. I also find that I can use Google Translate to translate some of the Czech phrases in your comment. I'm waiting for the first book to arrive. I expect it to be difficult reading. Yes, I read that Josef invented the word "robot," and Karel first used it. I hope you have a good Sunday.
my best, James Golden
Thanks, I have a good Sunday and a good week - school ends! Hooray! I keep forgetting to Wikipedia, this friend knows "everything" :-).
ReplyDeleteI read the John Brookes´s book, his ideas are interesting and beautiful garden design for me. I like when the gardener does not fight with nature. You know the Pruhonice Park? It is a natural park in English style. A man walks in the park all week and it's not boring: http://www.parkpruhonice.cz/
Have a nice day, Petra