Category Archives: Gardening

Certain people loathe hydrangeas, others loathe rhododendrons. I’m in the latter camp. When we bought our home, a gigantic rhododendron stood in front of the large window of the living room. It blocked the light and the view year-round, with its evergreen foliage and enormous stature. In late spring, it bloomed in the traditional bright magenta – a color I usually love, except in the ubiquitous form of the rhododendron. The trouble was, I had no clear idea of what to do in its stead, so it stayed in its spot, growing larger and larger from year to year, despite my futile pruning attempts.

Eventually I couldn’t take it anymore, and early one spring I chopped it down. This was a difficult endeavor. The trunks were thick and gnarled, and the roots had twisted in on themselves. It was a stubborn thing that initially refused to budge. I let it go for a few days before hacking away at it with a hatchet. Finally, it released its hold, and I fell backward in a shower of dirt and sweat.

I amended the soil and planted a double-file viburnum where the rhody used to be, in a poorly-thought-out moment of viburnum obsession. I hadn’t realized the importance of the former’s evergreen nature, and when winter came the bare branches made me question my decision. In another year, the fast-growing branches of the viburnum had reached the same proportion of the rhody that I’d taken down, leaving me with the same predicament.

Once again, I got out the saw and hatchet, and chopped away at another overgrown specimen. This was the ruthless part of gardening that, once I made up my mind to do it, I executed with cruel deliberation. Even in its relatively short time, it had somehow burrowed deeper than the relatively-shallow-rooted rhododendron, its long tap root extending beyond comprehension. I had to dig an enormous well around it just in order to get deep enough. For having such a delicate flower form, the viburnum is a hardy wench, but I fought until its death, because a gardener doesn’t give up. In the end, a bare patch of ground remained.

I didn’t move hastily to fill in the spot, enjoying the expanse for a bit and carefully contemplating what to do. The answer presented itself when an umbrella pine in the background outgrew its space beside and beneath a weeping cherry. On a rainy afternoon, I dug it gently out of the only home it had ever known and put it into the empty space that always seem to fill too quickly. The slow-growing nature of the umbrella pine was perfect for the spot, and we would have years before it would even need to be pruned.

Commonly called ‘Lady’s Mantle’ this popular perennial hold drops of water more beautifully than any other. Its common name is derived from the appearance of the leaves, which look somewhat like the mantle of a lady, back when women wore such fun things. Nowadays the closest things we have are the capes and cloaks from Tom Ford and Dolce & Gabbana – not quite something the average person will wear on the street (even if I would.)

As for the plant, the foliage is not its only fine attribute – it produces clouds of chartreuse blooms in the next few weeks, and they last a relatively long time, making for excellent bouquet fillers, or a simple but powerful statement if used en masse. The shade of the blooms is the perfect embodiment of the freshness of the garden at this time of the year. For these photographs, however, I wanted to emphasize the texture of the leaves, and their structural form.

It’s taken a few years, but there is finally a sizable and noteworthy bloom proliferation on the redbud (Cercis) tree I planted in the front yard. This tree has the interesting trait of blooming directly from the bark, where it explodes in this compelling color before unfurling its leaves. I like the effect, which is reminiscent of the native dogwood (sadly on the decline). I’ve read that it will also send out blooms wherever its bark is nicked. I’m not so selfish as to score it just to bring about more flowers – especially when it puts on such a fine show without such masochistic machinations.

It makes a great addition to the garden, even if you have limited space, as it remains a manageable size (thus far at least). The branches are said to be on the weak side, but so far that has not proven to be a problem, and this specimen is in the most unprotected part of the yard. Now that I’ve said that it will probably be dealt a damaging blow, but such is the nature of the beast.

The leaves are as gorgeous as the flowers, if decidedly less showy (it would be practically impossible to rival this pink.) They are shaped vaguely like hearts, and their shade of green veers just the slightest bit toward gray as they mature. They’d be characterized as fine or handsome by those whose passion is trees – and there’s nothing finer than a tree-lover.

The larch tree looks deceptively like an evergreen, and I’m often at pains when insisting to friends that it’s deciduous, especially at the start of summer when it looks so convincingly like a spruce. It takes until the end of fall, when those leaves turn a stunning gold, to completely convince them, and that’s a long time to win an argument – but I’m a patient man.

It took me a long time to come around to the weeping style. It always felt too fussy for me – most of them require some sort of staking or graft to get them high enough for the weeping aspect to be realized. I may be many things, but quite contrary to popular belief, fussy is not one of them – particularly when it comes to the garden. It was a weeping Katsura tree that changed my mind. Its style was beautiful, and the way its branches cascaded down like a waterfall, or the gently-curled mane of some gorgeous woman, was a revelation. From that moment on I was a sucker for a weeper. A cherry tree was first to be planted, following by this weeping larch. The former just finished its bloom season, while the later will look as fresh as this until September.

Don’t be fooled by its seemingly fragile appearance – the larch is one of the hardier plants, withstanding winters as far North as Zone 3, possibly 2. That’s some serious hardiness – and I like hardy.

These subtle, delicate blooms are the final curtain call of our last specimen of Fargesia nitida – the fountain bamboo. We lost its companion clump a couple of years ago, and now it is this one’s turn to go. Like an old couple who die within a short time of one another, it seems our two bamboos have gone on to another world, unwilling to be alone or apart any longer. That’s the rather anthropomorphic take on the more realistic life-cycle of the fountain bamboo.

This is a long-lived plant that blooms once every hundred years, goes to seed, and promptly dies. That means there are groups of Fargesia that are going through a die-down around the world. The plants we happened to purchase ten years ago were nearing the end of that cycle. It’s unfortunate, because what are the odds of the once-a-century timing happening now?

When I originally bemoaned and lamented the fact that we were losing our bamboo clumps (they’d made a rather full and welcome buffer to the corners of the house) a friend commented that rather than regret the loss, I should be thankful that I got to see such a rare event – something that happens only once every hundred years, and it turned my way of thinking around. She was right – so when this second plant started to bloom, I took a deep breath, let it out, and smiled a little. Such was the way of the world.

It’s currently going to seed, and so will make a rather depressing sight as it goes brown and dry for the rest of this season, but I’ll collect what I can, and see if my Dad and I can start the next generation of fountains next year.

Every gardener goes about their winter clean-up a little differently. Some start at one end of the yard and work neatly and methodically across the expanse until it’s all done. Some dabble a little here, and a little there, picking and choosing tasks as they present themselves. I’m somewhere in-between. I like to alternate tasks so as not to set winter-weary muscles into shock or spasm – a little raking, then a little bagging – a bit of pruning, then some soil amending. Then I’ll do a methodical sweep from one end of the yard to another to finish it all off.

This year we’re a bit behind, and usually by this time I’d have had a number of workable days in which the clean-up would already have been accomplished. When I walked out into the backyard and surveyed the sad state of affairs, I had a strange moment of wanting to give up. I contemplated not doing a damn thing, and letting the gardens and yard go all ‘Grey Gardens’ this year. With a new job and other responsibilities coming up, I felt a little overwhelmed. But I put on the gloves, unfolded the first paper lawn bag, and began as I always begin – pruning the sweet Autumn clematis to within a foot of the ground and removing last year’s twining stems from the arbor. You never when a spring or summer might be the last.

Another spring clean-up has begun, and the long, happy road to another warm season stretches far into the distance. Embrace it ~ summers are not endless, and spring is even less so.

The coral-bark Japanese maple is a magical tree. Named for its gorgeous red bark, it offers a stellar all-season show, from the crimson of said bark providing a bright spot in the winter months, to the light green foliage of early spring, the deeper green of high summer, and this brilliant fall finale. On sunny autumn days, it absolutely glows, resplendent against a blue sky, and during darker spells it illuminates whatever corner is lucky enough to house its beauty. The coral aspect of the bark is most pronounced in its first few years, so pruning is beneficial not only to keep its size in check, but to stimulate new stem growth.