In The Garden

Hi everyone!  I thought I'd share a few photos from the garden.  It has been nearly two years since I moved and as some of you know, it took all of the first year just to get the beds whipped into shape, the weeds under control and gain some sense of control over what was already here when I moved in.  This second season in the garden has been devoted to details and I'm finally at a place where I'm getting plants in the ground every weekend.  It isn't that I haven't planted anything at all over the past two years, I've just worked bed by bed to try and get it right the first time (yeah, right!) and keep the moving of plants later on to a minimum.  Whether they eventually get moved or not, some of the plants that have been in the ground for a season or two are really settling in nicely and certain ones are really beginning to put on a show.  I thought I'd share a few of the goings on in the garden with you.  Hope you enjoy this little tour of some of the plant life around my garden.

Spring started off back in March with Hamamelis x intermedia 'Arnold Promise', one of my favorite witchhazels.

Flowering at about the same time as the witchhazel, Helleborus x ericsmithii 'Silver Moon' has quickly become one of my favorites.

Iris reticulata is a late winter/early spring bloomer that brightens up the gray days of winter just about the time you begin to wonder if spring will ever arrive.

Beginning in May and continuing on for well over a month is Papaver dubium, the common field poppy.  I love its deeply divided, fern-like foliage and the brilliant orange blooms.  It's a re-seeder, so make sure you leave the seedpods!

As I mentioned in a previous blog entry, hydrangea season was spectacular this year.  This is Hydrangea serrata 'Blue Billow' in full bloom next to the garden shed.

A closeup of 'Blue Billow'.  So beautiful!

One of my favorite shade plants, Symphytum x uplandicum 'Axminster Gold'.  Unfortunately, it's rather hard to find.

I love milkweeds! L-O-V-E them!  And this one, Asclepias variegata, is right near the top of the list.  If you need a cool plant that thrives in dry shade (or part shade anyway), this is it!  And the monarch butterflies like it, too.

Gladiolus papilio is a small-flowered, hardy gladiolus.  I got my corms from Ellen Hornig at Seneca Hill Perennials just before she decided to close the nursery.  I have at least three color forms that have flowered so far.  This one has the nicest markings, but there is another that has a more open flower.  The third is an entirely different color--a sort of mauve-lavender with grey undertones.  Quite unusual.

I love this variegated pine, Pinus densiflora 'Oculis Draconis', the "dragon eye" pine.

One of my favorite hydrangeas, Hydrangea arborescens 'Hayes Starburst', discovered by my friend Hayes Jackson in his garden in Anniston, Alabama.  This is a cousin of the popular 'Annabelle' hydrangea, but much, much more refined.  It's also a lot slower to establish and needs about three seasons in the garden to really get going.  It's well worth the wait!

And finally... flowering this week, Musa ornata 'Red Jewel', which has been hardy in a couple of gardens in the Nashville area in protected locations for the past 5 or 6 winters.  I'm not claiming it as "hardy", necessarily, but if you site it appropriately you may get it to come through the winter.  From Zone 7 south, I think it would be pretty reliable.  It sure is spectacular when it flowers!

And that's what has been happening in the garden so far this year.  New things continue to flower and each week I get more plants, some of which have lived in pots for more than 5 years, in the ground.  Hope your summer, wherever you are (or winter if you're south of the equator!) is going well and I'll be back again soon.  Happy gardening!

Bailing Out

Hello from a rain soaked, waterlogged and devastated, but optimistic Nashville, Tennessee.  For those of you who haven't heard, west and middle Tennessee and several other parts of the southeast were soaked by torrential rains this past Saturday and Sunday with some areas receiving upwards of 20 inches of rain in 36 hours.  Nashville proper "officially" received 13 1/2 inches of rain according to the National Weather Service, but many areas of town would argue that they received more--and they'd probably be right.  At my house in Primm Springs, Tennessee, which is about 30 miles west of Nashville, I dumped 15 1/2 inches of rain out of my rain gauge.  However, there were several times over the course of two days when the wind was blowing so hard that it was raining sideways and the rain was probably being blown right across the opening of the rain gauge without going in.  My guess is that I actually had in the neighborhood of 18 inches of total rainfall.  Thankfully, I live on top of a hill.  Our damage was mostly cosmetic and while it's inconvenient, it certainly isn't life altering.

Tens of thousands of people in the city of Nashville and several surrounding communities have lost everything they've ever owned.  Many will have a hard time recovering.  Lives have been lost across the state.  In addition to the many homes and lives affected, many of Nashville's most famous attractions are devastated or destroyed.  The Opryland Hotel had 15 feet or more of water throughout the hotel and the Opry House had water above the level of the stage.  Next door, the Opry Mills Mall has at least 6-8 feet of water inside and a friend who works at one of the stores there says they will not even be allowed in to assess damage until Friday, at the earliest.  Musicians were also hit hard by this event, as one of the primary warehouses where many musicians store their instruments when they are not on the road was completely devastated by the flood waters.

Our stunning Schermerhorn Symphony Center--built just within the past 5 years and arguably one of the finest modern symphony halls in the world--had 25 feet of water in the lower level.  The damage there has yet to be assessed.  The same goes for the Country Music Hall of Fame, which had five to six feet of water in its theater and whose vaults, which hold the entire history of country music, were in the lower levels.  I haven't heard any official word on losses there.  Businesses throughout the downtown district were flooded and our LP Field, the home of the Tennessee Titans football team, looked like a giant swimming pool from the air, with water filling the field up to the first level of stadium seating.

Gratefully, there has been very little (almost none) looting or other types of theft, etc.  People are, for the most part, calm, cool, collected, respectful and marching forward--cleaning up and figuring out what to do next.  Neighbors helping neighbors, friends helping friends and strangers pitching in to help people they've never met.  Keep the citizens of Nashville and it surrounding communities, as well as those in west and southwest Tennessee and northern and eastern Mississippi in your thoughts as we begin to recover from this record-setting flood that experts are now calling a "once in a thousand year" event.   Next week we'll be back to gardening.

If you'd like to see some stunning images of what we've been through in the past few days, click here http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/05/flooding_in_tennessee.html

See you soon!