Garden non-sequiturs

Just so we’re on the same page, here’s the definition for non-sequitur.

A conclusion or statement that does not logically follow

 from the previous argument or statement.

Gardening really amplifies my tendency to be illogical (though I will deny it to my dying day) or at least plagued by contradictory ideas. I can go on at a clip completely comfortable in the belief that my garden is set in stone except for minor tweaking. And then a photo here, an article there, and I’m off and running on a… Well, I refuse to use the word. I’ll only say tangent. Houses get this done to them once in a decade or two. Women seem to be getting really repetitive about it when it comes to their faces. But I refuse to keep going down this road with my garden. Will it never end?

Cydney (click it) started it by recommending Paul Zimmerman’s very good article on (click it) moving a mature rose bush. Excellent information that was totally irrelevant to my gardening life. Then she mentioned meeting a writer at the Garden Bloggers Fling in Ashville last week, Lynn Hunt, whose lovely gardening blog is called (click it) The Dirt Diaries. Somehow I had never heard of this blog, so I googled it and read her latest post about her long, long love affair with David Austin roses. That’s all it took. No earthquake, no brain transplant. Two simple, unrelated thoughts that have rocked my world.

Without consulting me, my brain made the instant decision to move ‘Bow Bells’ out of her shady place into the sunny place where ‘Enchantress’ now resides which would move ‘Enchantress’ to the curb. You see, ‘Bow Bells’ is an Austin rose who has been relegated to a rose dungeon, chained to the shade, deprived of her right to be who she is, a bloom machine. And ‘Enchantress’ is an Old Garden Rose, a Tea rose to be exact, to whom I have become very attached. This attachment began back when most of my roses wouldn’t keep leaves on their boney bodies. ‘Enchantress’ on the other hand was as evergreen as any azalea you’ve ever seen, a masterpiece in green. In response to rosarians’ comments that she balled and crisped excessively I sang merrily that I didn’t care about flowers at all. It was her leaves and her petite size with which I was in love. Don’t get me wrong, I would add quickly, I love her tiny, petal-packed magenta flowers, so rare for a Tea rose. There just weren’t that many of them that often. The balling and crisping didn't happen in my garden, so she was a winner for me. 

Alas, time has not been a friend to ‘Enchantress’. This spring the balling and crisping has seemed to be constant. Her size, though by no means large by Tea standards, is no longer petite, and this treacherous gardener has been casting hairy eyeballs her way more and more lately. I would urge myself to be reasonable. The front garden did not need another giant hole in it especially on the same side with the hole that ‘Bermuda’s Anna Olivier’ had left. So sit tight was my plea to myself. She’ll get over it when the heat arrives. It’ll be fine, just watch.



By rights I should not be allowed out of the little world I have made for myself in my little garden. Reading or hearing or lip-reading the ideas of others should not be allowed. They can only cause trouble since my applecart is already far too wobbly. But the milk has in fact been spilt. Perhaps I should look upon this monkey wrench as a blessing in disguise sent to rescue me from having to walk past ‘Enchantress’ with curled lip ever again. Yes, a garden should not be a place where unsatisfying plants continue for very long. There should only be pleasantness and satisfaction in the garden. (She's dreaming again.) It is nothing personal against this rose which in another garden could very well be exquisite, and at the same time it is very personal to this gardener’s peace of mind which is delicate to say the least. Neither is it anything to feel guilt over, though I do feel considerably guilty. Since vowing never to hastily pull out roses again, it is not a thing I do easily, just a bit too often. So maybe in the grand plan for my garden, the one that God alone has control over, maybe this is a step in the right direction along the same lines as omelets and broken eggs.

Maybe ‘Enchantress’ would be happier in a different spot… different than the curb, I mean. I do have a vacancy next to ‘Reve d’Or’ on the east side of the house that gets a bit of shade. Maybe she wouldn’t crisp so much in a less broiler-like location. She might even fit since she’s sort of oblong.

(Heavy sigh)

I think perhaps this semi-hysterical outpouring has given my peace of mind some peace of mind.

~~~~~~~~~~   

Talk about non-sequiturs! A foxglove blooming in the June heat & humidity of Florida?

I'll interject  'Maman Cochet' into any conversation regardless of subject.

And 'Becky Lynn' photos come out like the proverbial pics of the grandkids, no matter how off topic.

I can't believe anyone wouldn't want to follow the progress of 'Full Moon Rising'.

Oh, by the way 'White Maman Cochet' was looking lovely yesterday.

Leave out 'Le Vesuve'? Nah.

Yesterday

Since the garden is pretty much between flushes, almost on the verge of the next flush, there isn’t a lot of blooming, but there are signs, and besides, a garden is more than flowers. A flowerless time in the garden is an opportunity for seeing structure and texture and for eyeballing plant size and willingness to play nice with neighbors. I had walked the garden on Saturday, taking 174 shots, a ton even for me, but yesterday #1 Dear Son arrived with his Canon EOS DSLR camera to let me take it for a “test drive”. With actual glee I walked around again and took 195 more. What a fun camera! What great photographs it produces! (I’ve been on Ebay a lot since then looking for a bargain.) Yesterday also produced a fix for the problem of super bright sunlight blowing out my whites and reds. DS suggested using a polarization filter on the lens, so I got one from DH (seems like he has one of everything), and it worked!! Finally, an answer to glare and distorted colors.

The photos in this post were taken with DS’s camera before I knew about the polarization filter, so I had to adjust the exposure manually – not completely successfully - after the fact with Windows Live Photo. I was so impressed with the detail I could see in them. Not only are leaves sharply defined from twenty and even thirty feet away, but even the veins in the leaves are clearly visible as well. So amazing!

Third-year clematis 'Venosa Violacea' is going great guns, climbing to the top of the 8-ft. arbor in a month and blooming like never before.

Here are the new babies. Left to right: 'Gruss an Teplitz', 'Rosette Delizy' and 'Bermuda's Anna Olivier'. I moved RD & BAO up to 3-gallon pots last Friday. I hope they liked the rain this evening. I did. How convenient that I still had the old markers with their names on them.

'Frilly Bliss'

This is the marker for the daylily just below, but I couldn't resist including this sharp photo. A good name for a garden, too, don't you think?

'Passion District' was definitely a bit redder in her second bloom. This is one I really, really wanted since I started growing daylilies. I don't think I'm going to be disappointed.

What an incredibly deep wine color 'Marietta Dreamer' is. Interestingly, she starts out fairly light and gets very dark, apparently from the sun.

Also in her third year clematis 'Princess Diana' is marvelous. My neighbor just loves her.

'Bowbells', a David Austin rose, sits in the shade all day, awaiting the tree trimmers, but she still manages to put out some very delectable blooms. How's this for pretty?

As the sign says, this is 'Softee'. Last week she was merely green with hardly any flower buds that I noticed, and here she is blooming away. I don't know what she's like in the ground, but she's great in a pot.

Here is 'White Pet'. The camera does a great job showing detail in these white flowers which can sometimes lose definition in the bright sun. It sort of pops, doesn't it?

'Le Vesuve' is just starting to put on buds for the next flush, but I found this lone flower low down on the bush. I just added the Salvia farinacea (by the way, they're 77 cents at Lowe's - get some!!) to this bed a few weeks ago. I had six or seven 4" pots that had survived since February (looking a little rough) that I plopped in wherever there was a space. And today I bought three more. Can't have too much of this 'Victoria Blue' salvia.

Today 'Clotilde Soupert' has even more open flowers. It occurred to me today that 'Iceberg' may hate my garden, but Clotilde loves it! Grow what loves your garden!!!

I don't know what to say about 'Duquesa' except that she's scaring me. It feels like she's grown a foot in every direction in a week, probably more. She used to be quite lopsided, this being only her second spring. This side of her was decidedly empty a few short weeks ago, but not now. She has been adding canes everywhere, and now she's starting to bloom. In a few days she may be quite a sight. She's got to be 7' across and starting to bully her neighbors.

This is the absolute best photo I have ever been able to get of 'Bowbells'. That's why you haven't seen her. She's in the shade, and big green blobs don't photograph well. She's more than six feet tall. Gotta get that tree trimmer!! She needs just a bit more sun. 'Etoile de Mai' sits diminutively to the left.

Gorgeous 'Clotilde Soupert' has also put on some bulk in the last week with the new growth that comes with her flush. She's 6' across, and the 'Joan Senior' daylily (left of the Salvia) is about buried, as I feared she would be. It's incredible how the barren March garden is suddenly filled to overflowing in May. Over-planting in spring can be a trap to the Florida gardener, at least to the ones who grow OGRs. Clotilde went from a 3x3 pruned skeleton to this in two months. I just love her!!

'Pearl Harbor'

Here's the backside of 'Pinkie, Climbing'. She really has put on a show for more than a month.

This is the view along the driveway. You can get your bearings with the rain gauge. In the foreground in 'Clotilde Soupert', then 'Victoria Blue', a bit of 'Peach Drift' down low, 'Madame Abel Chatenay' almost bereft of blooms, and the tall dahlia 'Lucca Johanna' who by the way is not minding the heat and all day sun (yes, it's hot here). I've never grown dahlias before. One plant can be a whole garden's worth of flowers.

That's scary 'Duquesa' on the left, starting to encroach on the sidewalk. She's a whopper! My other 'Clotilde Soupert' is to her right with a 'Red Ruffle' azalea in between and behind the azalea is a whole crop of Purple Coneflowers that I seeded and transplanted into a big empty space. Ha! Those green hulks are about to be out-hulked. 'Duquesa' and 'Clotilde Soupert' are determined to join hands, I think. The front door is to the right up the sidewalk..

Imagine my utter surprise yesterday when I wheeled around to see this duo alongside the garage wall. That's 'Paint The Town Red' daylily and clematis 'Henryi', heading for the roof, I hope. Onward and upward...and outward!

The reaching 'Princess Diana' is casting her vines upon SDLM and Madame Lombard, but she is a gentle thing, easily tamed and guided. I don't think the roses mind.

Nigella damascena - I can never tell if those bulbous things are the pre-bloom buds or the post-bloom seed pods. I'm guessing seed pods. Coreopsis confused me this way, too, but I've figured that one out. I don't know nigella's habit yet.

Front and center is 'Madame Lombard', a young Tea rose but getting bigger and buried in the lacy foliage of the nigellas. I'm kind of thinking she's not being harmed by them, and the heat will soon enough take its toll on the annual flower. I just deadheaded 'Madame Lombard' the other evening, but she does have one flower to the right of all the nigella in a bloom cluster on a new cane in there somewhere.

The lovely 'Madame Lombard'.

I "filled" the vacancy created by the leaving of 'Bermuda's Anna Olivier' with 'Maggie' - a wee, tiny baby 'Maggie'. Until she's quite a bit bigger I'll have to live with a hole in the garden.

One day 'Maggie' will be a big buxom lady but she ain't yet, even though she's way bigger than she was.

Here's another view of the hole. I guess I really do have to haircut that big Liriope 'Evergreen Giant'. Itt's still freeze-ugly. Oh, the back pain!

Not blooming: 'Enchantress' on the fence at left, 'Clotilde Soupert, Climbing' on the front porch, and 'Le Vesuve' in the center. Definitely blooming: 'Pinkie, Climbing' by the garage!

My garden sentries are, of course, Salvia farinacea. The left one was one of the straggling survivors planted a few weeks ago. The right one is a transplant that was moved out of the way of 'Mme Abel Chatenay' and sat ON the ground for a couple of months awaiting my decision. Great plants.

'Red Cascade' is blooming again by the mailbox.

FYI, nothing has ever survived let alone thrived where those salvias are.

Believe it or not, I've never taken a shot of this view before. 'White Pet' is in the pot. Baby daylily bed in the foreground. 'Byzantine Enperor' daylily and the dahlia I mentioned, long lasting flowers and still more buds coming. I deadheaded her and 'Madame Abel Chatenay' on the right yesterday.  And gee, there should be a grand reward for anyone who sat through this entire post which. Whew! Glad you stayed.

On to the front garden

At a time when things in the garden are changing and also appearing out of the blue I am sad to say I did not get to walk through it today. Instead I stayed inside with DH while our DirecTV satellite installation was completed. Others are bookworms. I am a TV slug. I love movies, a few shows like The Closer, Fox News, football and small doses of other sports that DH likes. But mainly I hate the huge bills that Cox Cable was sending us every month, so the change was made, and I like it.

However, that leaves me with no memories or photos of today. The missed photos of ‘Polonaise’ yesterday were followed by more missed photos today. Is distressing too strong a word for my feelings? Well, maybe you understand. I do have some photos from Sunday, so I’ll just pretend today didn’t happen. Ooh, I don’t like the sound of that. Here’s Sunday.

This is the northeast corner of the circle which is situated in full southern sun. It’s almost a vanity shot with some gratuitous boasting thrown in. Leaves, leaves, and more leaves…and green leaves! I cherish spring for the leaves it brings, but I apologize if it’s a boring blob. To me it’s dense foliage. What could be better, I ask you? Or until now, rarer? Maturity brings all kinds of improvement, you know, and bushy rose bushes have been a wishful dream for me, so I can only hope leaves are here to stay. I don’t think you can see clearly the distinction between the bushes. I’ll tell you what and where and maybe with a zoom capability you can see where one ends and the next begins. Bottom right: ‘Clotilde Soupert’; bottom left: ‘Souvenir de Francois Gaulain’; above him: ‘Duquesa’; to the right: three bushes of ‘Hermosa’; top middle: ‘Pinkie, Climbing’; far left: another ‘Clotilde Soupert’; and top left: ‘Clotilde Soupert, Climbing’. These are my leafiest roses. Glorious, aren’t they?



‘Le Vesuve’ is on his way. He’s not quick out of the gate because he loves the heat, but above him yesterday was a veritable cloud of flower buds. I eagerly wait.



My volunteer larkspur forest. I’ve been assuming that they would all be purple because that’s the color they were last year. What a pleasing surprise when I saw that they are also lavender and pink. I do hope that the breeze blows their seeds absolutely everywhere. The pink one on the right sprouted from a vacant rose pot. I never even considered pulling it out – even to transplant.



This is ‘Lilian Austin’. She was a tiny thing after pruning. Her eagerness to get going is a nice surprise. She’s blooming on new growth that is only a few inches long.



Another ‘Lilian Austin’ bud.



The grande dame of my daylilies, ‘Sherry Lane Carr’. Some of you may not know that my affinity for this daylily is rooted in her name. You see it’s almost the same as mine. Change one little letter, and you get Sherry Jane Carr, the girl I used to be before marriage changed everything. Seeing this daylily’s name in print still catches at my breath and makes my heart flutter. It must be the thrill of fame – sort of, or at least as close as I’ll ever get. Anyway, this plant is a division of one that was buried about three feet back, under ‘Souvenir de la Malmaison’. I dug up that plant in February, I think, divided it in two, and they never missed a beat. This one has a budded scape. The other original plant that I did not divide but which is really quite huge has six scapes on it… the last time I looked anyway.



‘Souvenir de la Malmaison’ or 'Borderer' and friend. Looks too peachy to be SDLM, but I can't be sure.



Does anyone else buy packaged bulbs and bareroots with the best of intentions and then sort of forget them? I really need to stop buying them because so many don’t make it into the ground. This new sprout is a dahlia ‘Le Baron’, one of three planted about ten days ago. Hopefully, the other two will pop up and join this one.



The first Purple Coneflower blooms don’t look as shabby as first blooms usually do. They’re a welcome sight.



And more are coming.



‘Softee’ is underway. She’s a miniature that grows in a pot. By the way she’s almost thornless and quite healthy and pretty.



‘Le Vesuve’ again.



This is ‘Anda’, a small polyantha single. This flower is about two inches across, maybe a tad less, and the petals have a habit of rolling on one edge or the other for a rather unique look. Her color is really deep red which usually explodes in my camera as fuschia. I think she’s darker than this photo shows, but at least it’s red – on my monitor anyway. She gets some black spot but not terrible.



The ‘Queen of Beauty and Fragrance’ again, followed by the nightmare of every rosarian.



This is a balled flower of SDLM. It will never open, sealed shut by untimely moisture and/or thrips. This time I think it was moisture in the form of Saturday night’s downpour in the middle of a thunderboomer.



he-he. No, it’s not a very grainy photo of the garage wall. It’s a photo of the bird netting I “installed” so the two clematis vines would have something to hold onto – hopefully. I didn’t expect the mesh to be this small, only half inch. Hopefully, that will not be an impediment to their climbing. I also put some of the netting on ‘Maman Cochet, Climbing’ since her companion clematis ‘Duchess of Albany’ has had to lay on the ground for two years unable to grab hold of that Tea Rose’s thick canes.



This one is ‘Henryi’ (closer to the camera above).



And this one is ‘Westerplatte’. Hopefully, the snapdragons on both sides of them will keep their rootzones cooler.



This is clematis ‘Princess Diana’, already to the top of the four-foot obelisk.


So cottage-y. Hopefully, this ethereal sight distracts from the big hole on the left side of the garden…


…where ‘Maggie’ is just getting started.


Gardeners can’t have it all all the time. There’s always something not quite right – or very wrong. We hope no one else notices.