Walk about
A mid-day walk about the garden ... on Friday, June 11, about 1:30 pm ... Much too bright for photos, but there you are ...
Black gamecock iris, a Louisiana iris ... I think ... bought at a local farmer's market last year.
What iris? You've got me. It grows by the pond, and I anticipate a large clump in a few years.
Pond edge ... Lysimachia nummularia, Equisetum arvense,a baby Jewelweed (Impatiens capensis, wild impatiens) ...
Bold foliage, needed to bring definition to the haze of grasses, the matrix of grasses, shapes emerging from the background noise, order from chaos ...
Salix alba 'Britzensis' (below, not the River birch on the right above), which needs to be coppiced to get those colorful canes for late winter and spring, but I've grown so fond of the exuberant explosion of growth I delay, and delay ...
Filipendula rubra 'Venusta', which has naturalized with great vigor, Calamagrostis acutiflora 'Karl Foerster', Vernonia fasciculata (Prarie ironweed) in the background, a clump of Chelone 'Hot Lips' ...
The 'late prairie' or a simulacrum thereof, with emerging Rudbeckia maxima, Silphium perfoliatum, Silphium terebinthinaceum (Prairie dock), Physostegia 'Miss Manners', Inula racemosa, Panicum 'Dallas Blues', Panicum 'Cloud Nine', Calamagrostis a. KF, Pycnantheum muticum, and on and on ...
Foliage of Silphium terebinthinaceum ...
Eryngium yuccafolium (Rattlesnake master), soon to be underplanted with Sesleria autumnalis and Bergenia 'Bressingham Ruby'--will that work? If not, I'll replace the bergenia.
An evolving 'meadow' area ...
Looking back toward the house (yes, it's there).
Inula racemosa, which is seeding around, just as I want, next to Miscanthus 'Silberfeder.'
Bracken and the bank of M. 'Silberfeder'. I know bracken is supposed to be a bad invasive, but this colony has stayed in place for five years. It does grow into the path, but that's easily pulled out. The fall color is miraculous.
As the garden reaches a new stage of maturity, with small trees and shrubs now taking a more prominent place, and as I incorporate more shaded forest edge into the garden, it's developing a more complex character, and becoming a place to find a variety of different environments, with different emotional landscapes. Here, as we near the darker west side of the garden, trees cast heavy shadow at mid-day, lighting the foreground planting of Miscanthus s. 'Silberfeder', Petasites 'x Dutch', Pycnantheum muticum, and Lysimachia ciliata 'Firecracker' like a beacon.
The massed foliage shapes and textures are what make this planting. Later in the season, the Pycnantheum turns gray and white, creating an even more dramatic contrast of color.
The space below is where I intend to put a new raised stone planting area, a long and curvy one, to continue the line of the pond and existing raised stone planter nearer the house. In winter, this will appear as a broken diagonal snaking across the garden plain, almost a geologic feature. I've cleared the area of most large plants in anticipation of construction later in the summer.
Entering the woodland edge on the west side of the garden, one feels a cool respite from the sun drenched open garden.
Looking back across to the far side where the circle of red walnut logs signals its message - a metaphor of the life of the aboriginal people who once lived and hunted these hills. Next year I want to add Miscanthus giganteus behind to create a wall of complementary green and to screen the deer fencing (practical matters never go away).
A screen of Filipendula, approaching bloom...
And Silphium laciniatum (Compass plant), Silphium perfoliatum, Rudbeckia maxima, Vernonia ...
Ligularia japonica growing up through the gravel of the path, an exotic for sure, but appropriate to its place ...
Looking into the woodland garden (in progress) at the side of the house ...
And back toward the Ligularia japonica ...
Now looking across the width of the garden toward the tall cedars, and the circle of red logs ...
Black gamecock iris, a Louisiana iris ... I think ... bought at a local farmer's market last year.
What iris? You've got me. It grows by the pond, and I anticipate a large clump in a few years.
Pond edge ... Lysimachia nummularia, Equisetum arvense,a baby Jewelweed (Impatiens capensis, wild impatiens) ...
Bold foliage, needed to bring definition to the haze of grasses, the matrix of grasses, shapes emerging from the background noise, order from chaos ...
Salix alba 'Britzensis' (below, not the River birch on the right above), which needs to be coppiced to get those colorful canes for late winter and spring, but I've grown so fond of the exuberant explosion of growth I delay, and delay ...
Filipendula rubra 'Venusta', which has naturalized with great vigor, Calamagrostis acutiflora 'Karl Foerster', Vernonia fasciculata (Prarie ironweed) in the background, a clump of Chelone 'Hot Lips' ...
The 'late prairie' or a simulacrum thereof, with emerging Rudbeckia maxima, Silphium perfoliatum, Silphium terebinthinaceum (Prairie dock), Physostegia 'Miss Manners', Inula racemosa, Panicum 'Dallas Blues', Panicum 'Cloud Nine', Calamagrostis a. KF, Pycnantheum muticum, and on and on ...
Foliage of Silphium terebinthinaceum ...
Eryngium yuccafolium (Rattlesnake master), soon to be underplanted with Sesleria autumnalis and Bergenia 'Bressingham Ruby'--will that work? If not, I'll replace the bergenia.
An evolving 'meadow' area ...
Looking back toward the house (yes, it's there).
Inula racemosa, which is seeding around, just as I want, next to Miscanthus 'Silberfeder.'
Bracken and the bank of M. 'Silberfeder'. I know bracken is supposed to be a bad invasive, but this colony has stayed in place for five years. It does grow into the path, but that's easily pulled out. The fall color is miraculous.
As the garden reaches a new stage of maturity, with small trees and shrubs now taking a more prominent place, and as I incorporate more shaded forest edge into the garden, it's developing a more complex character, and becoming a place to find a variety of different environments, with different emotional landscapes. Here, as we near the darker west side of the garden, trees cast heavy shadow at mid-day, lighting the foreground planting of Miscanthus s. 'Silberfeder', Petasites 'x Dutch', Pycnantheum muticum, and Lysimachia ciliata 'Firecracker' like a beacon.
The massed foliage shapes and textures are what make this planting. Later in the season, the Pycnantheum turns gray and white, creating an even more dramatic contrast of color.
The space below is where I intend to put a new raised stone planting area, a long and curvy one, to continue the line of the pond and existing raised stone planter nearer the house. In winter, this will appear as a broken diagonal snaking across the garden plain, almost a geologic feature. I've cleared the area of most large plants in anticipation of construction later in the summer.
Entering the woodland edge on the west side of the garden, one feels a cool respite from the sun drenched open garden.
Looking back across to the far side where the circle of red walnut logs signals its message - a metaphor of the life of the aboriginal people who once lived and hunted these hills. Next year I want to add Miscanthus giganteus behind to create a wall of complementary green and to screen the deer fencing (practical matters never go away).
A screen of Filipendula, approaching bloom...
And Silphium laciniatum (Compass plant), Silphium perfoliatum, Rudbeckia maxima, Vernonia ...
Ligularia japonica growing up through the gravel of the path, an exotic for sure, but appropriate to its place ...
Looking into the woodland garden (in progress) at the side of the house ...
And back toward the Ligularia japonica ...
Now looking across the width of the garden toward the tall cedars, and the circle of red logs ...
James Golden