Dirt Therapy

'Dublin Bay' with lupine and Clematis 'Jackmanii Superba' on our front gate I hope the colors in my rose photos come out okay as I suffered an accident involving a tree limb and my eyeball. Day one was agony (and of course it would happen on a Sunday) but I am feeling better today and after seeing my eye doctor this morning, I feel a lot better. It actually happened on a good weekend as the weather is too hot to be working in the garden. I decided to work on photos I've taken over the past few weeks to recuperate and escape the heat. Of course, that involves working on the computer and in Gimp in which great eyesight is needed. Bear with me! 'Lady of Shalott' The roses got off to a late start this year because of the cool spring. It has also been wet which has encouraged black spot. Powdery mildew doesn't seem to be as bad this year.  'Alchymist' 'Mary Rose' 'Marie Pavie' 'Lady Emma Hamilton' 'Gertrude Jekyll' bei...

Following the garden tour last Saturday, the gardeners who were on the tour got together for snacks, drinks and recovery. We met at Laura Scott's garden, who lives just a few miles from our house. I had not seen her garden before and it was a treat. Despite living so close, her house and garden is like being in the country. Very quiet, bucolic and big! Laura has an artistic eye and she is very good at creating vignettes. The garden is a series of rooms with a vegetable garden, herb garden, perennial and shrub border, a mini-pond and the list goes on. And I just remembered there is an orchard and a peony field! The photo above and below show the water feature. I absolutely love Clematis recta - a new plant to be on the look for!   Another plant that I loved was the pink Bowman's Root ( Gillenia trifoliata 'Pink Profusion' ). I have the white-flowered variety but didn't know that a pink variety existed.  One plant that I'm vaguely familiar with but rarely see is ...

One of the early plants that intrigued me after moving here was Deutzia 'Magicien' (sometimes called 'Magician'). I had seen a tree-sized specimen at Joy Creek Nursery in their display gardens. I had been under the impression that deutzias were small-sized shrubs like 'Nikko' which could almost be considered a ground cover. But no, 'Magicien' is much larger than that, capable of rising to a height of 8 feet or more (and my haphazard memory tells me that the Joy Creek specimen was even larger). It was hybridized by the Lemoine family in the 1920s. A robust grower with stunning pink flowers, it is literally smothered in blooms which weigh down the vertical reaching canes. I discovered this last week (albeit after our garden tour) when I noticed that the shrub was no longer arching into the sky. Indeed, the weight of the blooms had dragged the canes down and out of sight.  After a quick attempt at remedying the problem with some string and stakes, I realiz...

An interesting season this is turning out to be as June has arrived and we are still getting rain and it is yet to surpass the 80 degree mark. The garden is behind by about two weeks. This isn't necessarily a bad thing (or I don't think so) but it makes scheduling garden tours a bit tricky. Looking back at garden photos from last year, I see that by late May, the roses were in full swing. This year, they are just beginning near the end of the first week of June. The one rose that has been blooming fully is 'Climbing Pinkie'. Introduced in 1952, this polyantha rose is said to be popular in the United States and Australia but not as well known in other countries. It is a sport of the shrub variety 'Pinkie', introduced in 1947 (a seedling of 'China Doll'). Often described as a "mannerly climber", it does project an elegant statement when grown on a structure. It can also be grown as an arching shrub although I've never seen it used this way. T...