"What does it do?" is a question a friend of mine often asks me when she goes with me to a garden center. As we walk among the trees and shrubs, I'm thinking Fothergill gardenii, great fall foliage, Syringa, love the smell of the blooms in the spring and mom really liked those flowers, Rhodendendron, rarely a good choice around here, Potentilla fruticosa, related to roses Cotinus coggygria, weird flowers supposed to look like plumes of smoke from a distance and needs to be whacked back to … [Read more...] about What does it do?
shrubs
Double Flowering Mock Orange Defies the Odds in My Garden
A double-flowering mock orange, Philadelphus 'Buckley's Quill' has defied the odds and continues to grow in my garden In my garden, the double-flowering mock orange is hidden behind some other shrubs, including a pearl bush, Exochorda, so it is only visible if you walk into the vegetable garden and look from there to the backside of a border called The Shrubbery. It is so hidden my first thought on seeing blooms in that general area was to wonder if the pearl bush was still … [Read more...] about Double Flowering Mock Orange Defies the Odds in My Garden
In the Garden of Southern Follies and Delights
Camellias! As hardy as I could find. I blame the writer Eudora Welty for my recent purchase of camellias (Camellia japonica) for my garden. A while back, I read Tell About Night Flowers: Eudora Welty's Gardening Letters, 1940-1949, edited by Julia Eichelberger). In nearly every letter to her publisher, Welty mentions her camellias. I knew as I read the letters that camellias are not hardy enough for my garden. But oh how Welty went on and on, letter after letter, about those camellias. … [Read more...] about In the Garden of Southern Follies and Delights
I am the conflicted gardener
Just a picture of a wooded garden scene I am the conflicted gardener. On the one hand, I feel as though I should be buying plants for my garden that will reduce the amount of time, effort, and strength needed to maintain it. To that end, I ordered two pawpaw trees to plant where the big viburnums grew until two weeks ago when I had a crew cut them out. The pawpaw tree is a native tree for me, and once established, it should give me years of enjoyment without too much care. Plus. if … [Read more...] about I am the conflicted gardener
Requiem for Two Viburnums
Let us pause to remember the snowball bush, Viburnum opulus ‘Sterile’, for its years of service in my garden. It provided shelter for birds and blooms for me. It anchored one corner of the vegetable garden, blocking the view of the compost piles. It hid more than one weed under its branches, and no doubt a fair number of rabbits sought refuge under its wide boughs. It taught me to love large shrubs and reminded me always of my grandmothers, who had big snowball bushes in their gardens. … [Read more...] about Requiem for Two Viburnums
Wordless Wednesday – Fall Floral Flotsam
Fall Floral Flotsam on Viburnum "A bit out of season, but a reminder that every season leaves something behind when it moves on, a remembrance, a bit of debris, some floral flotsam." … [Read more...] about Wordless Wednesday – Fall Floral Flotsam
